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| #1 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
[Warlock] PVE Raiding Compendium
I'm going to try and attempt to summarize the vast wealth of information going around.
With patch 2.4 out, I'm adding new data as we learn things. If you are only interested in what a particular talent build or piece of loot does for you, I recommend using the spreadsheet by Leulier, linked at the bottom. Warlocks have many great talents, and there is lots of room for customizing your spec. Consequently there are many viable hybrid builds, each requiring a different play style. To keep this guide short, I'll focus on the three main tiers and their most sensible pve raid builds. Even within those there are a lot of variations possible. Affliction Affliction focuses on dots. Typical demon choice for this style is imp. Even though your crit chance is lower than that of destruction warlocks, you'll want to have improved shadow bolt. Examples classic Spec Raid support with UA Raid support with Ruin As mentioned before, there is plenty of flexibility in the early parts of the Affliction tree. Play style - Optimal strategy is to keep Unstable Affliction, Corruption, Siphon Life and a curse active on your target. When all your dots are up you will be using that time to throw Shadow Bolts or Dark Pact/Life tap. Good timing is important: never refresh a dot effect before it has run its full duration, but minimize the time between the last tic and reapplying. For example, you want to start casting Unstable Affliction before the last tic hits, so that the last tic happens during the cast and UA is reapplied almost immediately after. - You probably want to use an addon like DoTimer | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com or Forte Gaming / Forte Warlock Addon for this. There is no fixed rotation since your dots have different durations. - Get your imp buffed, blessing of wisdom helps a lot for his mana regeneration, which you can siphon off with dark pact. Imps can only be buffed when they are not phase shifted. - Despite Drain Life getting a lot of benefits, Shadow Bolts will always outdamage it. Drain life is the most mana efficient spell since you're effectively gaining life/mana. Strong and weak points - More mana efficient and self sufficient than other trees. - Ideal in situations when two or more mobs are being tanked, as you can dot them all. - This spec provides less burst damage, and scales worse with gear than other specs. - Bloodpact can be nice to boost party hit points, especially on fights where a tank can get flattened fast, or where there is lots of aoe damage on the raid. - Can come with Malediction, which scales with the amount of Shadow/Arcane users in the raid. It adds 2.7% over the untalented CoS. (113% talented, 110% untalented, 1.13/1.1 = 102.73%) - Can come with Shadow Embrace, which reduces the melee damage on the tank by 5%. This effect is multiplicative: if your tank would take a 1000 hit it'll be 950 with SE. - Due to the high amount of raid benefits (Blood Pact, Malediction, Shadow Embrace), having at least one affliction warlock in a raid is recommended. - This build uses a lot of debuff slots. As soon as the cap of 40 debuffs on a mob is reached, the oldest ones will start falling off. For this reason, too many affliction warlocks in a raid will hamper one another. If you're having trouble with debuffs being pushed off, you can use a lower rank of CoS (see Curses, below), have all warlocks use only the optimal dots, or get Warlocks to respec to another tree. (also, see the Debuff count addon linked at the bottom of this post) - Most affliction warlocks use Suppresion to reach the hit cap early on, and spec out of it when they obtain more +hit on their gear. Variants Affliction builds have access to several talents that can support the raid: Improved blood pact, Malediction, and Shadow Embrace. Most variants are therefore tradeoffs between these and talents that will increase the Warlock's personal dps. Optimally just one warlock in the raid should have them. The UA support build is recommended at starting levels, with the Ruin support build likely to perform a bit better at end level raiding, due to high amounts of hit and crit rating on pieces at that level. 30/21/10 keeps popping up as an alternative build. It's been harshly criticised every time it was proposed. See post #78 and beyond in this thread for details. Basic gear choices (see below) Spell hit (until capped with suppression) > Spell damage > Spell haste & Crit After obtaining 76 hit rating with 5/5 Suppression, warlock dots are hit capped. Further extra hit rating only affects Shadow Bolts/Immolate, and is worth less than spell damage on a point-for-point basis. Demonology Demonology in raids is about making best use of your top tier Demonology talents. The strength of these can make up for the lackluster mid tier Demonology ones. Demonologists get a boost to spell power, get a 5% damage bonus due to soul link, and get +5% to crit with spells. It is vital their pet stays alive, though. A Demonologist without a pet is very ineffective. Raiding With Felguard (SSC, TK, Hyjal, BT) - The Warlocks Den is a great resource for aspiring Demonologists. Examples Standard Spec with high focus on ISB Another version with improved Life Tap Demonology without a Felguard using a Succubus instead to obtain Ruin. Play Style & tips - Keeping your Felguard or Succubus alive is key. Micro managing your pet is vital, since it dying means losing a lot of dps. - Spell rotations are similar to affliction, with a higher accent on (improved) Shadow Bolts. - Remember to have your pet attack from the back. Melee attacks from the front can be parried, which can cause a faster attack on the MT. Avoid this at all costs. Update: this has been patched, and demons will now position themselves behind their target. - Ask for buffs on your pet. His stamina and intellect will boost your attack power, and it'll allow him to stay alive longer. BoW should help too - One point in Mana Feed will allow the Felguard to cleave for 5 minutes - If you choose to use a Succubus, don't have her use Lash of Pain on the primary target, as it eats ISB debuff charges. - [Sporeling Snack] and [Kibler's Bits] work on Warlock Pets. The latter is a reward from the cooking quests from the goblin in Shattrath. - Greater blessings cast on warlocks will also affect their demons, except the Felguard. Felguard and hunter pets get the greater blessings cast on Warriors instead. Phase shifted imps do NOT receive buffs. - Demons about to die can be dismissed and nearly instantly resummoned with Fel Domination. This will conserve their buffs, and bring them back with full health and mana. The command to dismiss a demon is /run PetAbandon(), which can be macro'd and assigned to a button. Strong and weak points - Demonology relies on having the Felguard/Succubus out, so the effectiveness varies a lot. Some fights are brutal towards pets. - It is the most versatile spec due to the demons each having different effects on you. - Best choice for Warlock offtanks in specific encounters (Leotheras being a prime example) - Demonology is probably the least gear dependent of all three specs. Exception is the tier 5 two piece set bonus : [Hood of the Corruptor]. This set bonus make a vast difference. [Void Star Talisman] is also really useful in keeping your pet alive. Before obtaining those items, demonology is likely to perform less well than the alternatives due to the extra healing required on the pet. Shadow Priests in your group will obviously help a lot for pet survivability. - Demonologists want a raidbuffed demon out at all times. Make sure to resummon it before raid buffs are applied, or you'll end up having to ask for buffs on your pet. These buffs have huge effects on your demon and on your spellpower. It can become quite a hassle to have to ask for buffs: most healers don't have pets included in their UI and having to ask for buffs on a pet can become quite tedious. Especially the Succubus is prone to dying quite fast. Variants The Succubus build is an alternative to 0/21/40. It has Demonic Tactis (5% crit) and Soul Link and Demonic Knowledge (typically around +200 damage for a raid buffed succubus). It doesn't have the 0/21/40 Backlash (3% crit) and SnD (20% spellpower to Shadow Bolt/Incinerate). For reference, a Succubus has a lot less hit points and has no avoidance to aoe effects compared to a Felguard. Basic gear choices (see below) Spell hit > Spell damage > Spell Haste > Spell Crit As mentioned before, tier 5 two part bonus is very useful for this spec, as is [Void Star Talisman] which drops from Solarian in TK. Stamina and Intellect and Demonic Knowledge: Demons get a Stamina boost equal to 30% of their owner, same for Intellect, which translates into 15% Spell power. With talents: 1 stamina on items = 1.15 stamina on Warlock (Demonic Embrace) = 0.3968 Stamina on Demon (Fel Stamina 15%, Demon Sta contribution 30%) = 0.0595 spellpower (15% Demonic Knowledge) 0.0720 spellpower with kings on both demon and owner So 1 sta = 0.072 spellpower with BoK. It also boosts your Succubus hit points with 2.9 without kings (update needed for Felguard, can anyone tell me the stamina to hit point conversion? It's demon dependent, Succubi get 7 health per sta) 1 intellect = 0.345 int to demon (Fel Intellect 15%, Demon Int Contribution 30%) = 0.052 spell power (15% Demonic Knowledge) 0.062 spell power with kings on both demon and owner. So with Kings 1 int = 0.062 spellpower (and 0.3 crit rating, as listed further in this post) Gearing for Stamina or Intellect in order to obtain higher spellpower through Demonic Knowledge will yield very insignificant returns, especially compared to how buffs like Fortitude and Arcane Intellect on the demon will affect it. Because of this, Stamina's only real function is to give you (and to a lesser extent, your demon) a larger health pool. Destruction Due to Shadowfury's limited use in raids, the typical Destruction build is 0/21/40, taking a few subpar talents in Demonology to obtain Demonic Sacrifice, which boost shadow damage by 15%. This build focuses primarily on Shadow and Flame, Ruin, and Demonic Sacrifice, resulting in Shadow Bolts with a high damage coefficient from spell power. (3/3.5 + 0.2 from talents, or rougly 105.7%) It's very important to keep the Improved Shadow Bolt Debuff (ISB) up as much as possible, since it provides 20% extra shadow damage to the entire raid while it is active. (including dots - this is a common misconception). Destruction warlocks consequently put a higher value on crit rating than other builds do, since it helps with ISB uptime.. At low gear levels, fire spells are competitive, but they scale considerably worse compared to their shadow counterparts due to the ISB debuff. As gear improves Shadow Bolt will become more and more powerful compared to the other spells. This spec scales best with gear, and will clearly outperform affliction on high gear levels (Hyjal/BT). For starting raiders, affliction gets a head start due to the hit bonus of Suppression and the mechanics of dots putting spell damage to work while needing virtually no other stats. When +hit gear becomes more easily available, the gap closes. There has been much debate about what the exact gear treshold is, for destruction to outperform affliction. Opinions are divided on the matter. Both specs require different play styles, resulting in boss fights typically favoring one spec over the other. ISB damage is hard to measure. Because of this it is virtually impossible to get solid evidence. The debate is unlikely to cease any time soon. The old rule of thumb "you need Hyjal/BT gear for destruction to be viable" is most definitely untrue. Anecdotal evidence suggests Destruction warlocks with Kharazan or tailored gear outperform equally geared affliction warlocks. Your mileage may vary, as player skill and latency are likely to be far more determining factors. Examples Default build Hybrid Fire Destruction Full fire destruction Destruction with Siphon Life Destruction with Shadowfury Play style - Spam Shadow Bolts and curses. Life Tap at opportunate times. Bring potions, healthstones and bandages. - Curse of Doom and Curse of Agony still provide higher dps over Shadow Bolts provided your target lives long enough. - At lower spelldamage levels Corruption will be viable, provided you have enough debuff slots, you get the full 6 tics, you're not threat capped and you don't need to move to cast it (no extra range talent). - If CoE and improved Scorch are up, talented Immolate will outdamage Shadow Bolt on damage-per-casting-time at every realistic gear choice, even if accounting for the extra mana cost and ISB procs. If all of these factors are absent, Shadow Bolt might be the better choice depending on gear (better gear favors SB). - At the start of a fight you may want to apply Corruption then Immolate regardless of gear, since starting early with Shadow Bolts can easily outaggro the tank if he gets an unlucky string of dodges/misses/parries on the pull, and you crit your first couple of spells. - Since you require Life Taps, having some way to monitor raid health is recommended. When the raid is topped up, a Life Tap or two will result in Flashes of Light or Renew/Rejuvenation on you, all of which are very mana efficient. Moderation is key, since a string of consecutive Life Taps will set off alarm bells, diverting healer attention. Strong and weak points - This spec has the most powerful burst damage. This is a boon when things need to die quick, but it makes it harder to manage threat while still maximizing dps. - It is the least mana efficient spec, requiring the occasional heal to be able to keep dpsing. - Destruction warlocks will need a healthy amount of healthstones, healing potions and bandages in case healing is scarce. Having to stop dpsing to bandage or drain life will make your dps drop dramatically. - Scales the best with gear, due to Shadow Bolts getting a 106% bonus per +damage (3/3.5 + 0.2 from talents), which result in more dps bonus than any other spell for any spec. - ISB uptime is hard to measure or model, but provides a boost in shadow damage to the entire raid. - This spec requires a lot less management since there are no real dots to keep track of, and no pet that can die. Some warlock dislike the lack of variety in spells used, others prefer it because it allows them to focus on other things, like keeping an overview of what is happening. - Conflagrate, like Shadowburn has very limited use in raids, as Shadow Bolts outdamage it. Variants: The fire specs use Incinerate over Shadow Bolts. It is more mana efficient, but has no synergy with other Warlocks/Shadow Priests since you're not contributing to ISB. Probably only competitive with the standard build when there are no Shadow users in the raid at all, and fire mages are keeping improved Scorch up. It is listed for completeness. The Siphon Life spec drops Demonic Sacrifice for Improved Life Tap and Siphon Life, making you more self reliant. Key talents are the standard destro ones (SnF, Ruin, +8% crit) and Siphon Life. Not as high dps output as the default build, but does require less heals and Life Taps and provides Blood Pact. The Shadowfury spec drops Demonic Sacrifice for Shadowfury and some affliction talents. Not as high dps output as the default build, but gets improved Life Tap, Shadowfury and provides Blood Pact. Shadowfury has very limited use in raids, but is very powerful in encounters where it does work. (Hydross, Morogrim, Vashj, Solarian and in Hyjal / ZA) Nether protection is good on only a few encounters (Illhoof, Theron Gorefiend, Archimonde). It does not proc off Leotheras's Demon phase Fire Bolts, so this will not affect your ability to tank him. This is not the case for later bosses (Capernian, Illidan) that can normally also be tanked by warlocks in certain phases: you will not be able to tank these reliably with Nether Protection. Use of a /cancelaura Nether Protection macro can alleviate but not solve the problem. Basic gear choices (see below) Spell hit > Spell Haste /Spell damage / Crit. General gearing issues: There are 4 main statistics for a warlock for dps: Spell damage Spell hit Spell haste rating Spell crit Each of these has diminishing returns. As a result, there is no fixed tradeoff rate for one versus the other. Different specs will also focus on different stats. Tools to determine tradeoffs for hit/crit/haste rating and spelldamage for your specific talent build and gear selection are linked below. Spell hit is a special case, because it provides the most effective way to increase dps on bosses and is useless on everything else beyond 5%. The hit cap versus bosses is 16% (202 spell hit rating, unless you have a Draenei or a Totem of Wrath). Typically Warlocks will use two sets of gear, one for bosses and another for trash mobs or add fights. Spell haste rating largely depends on the spells you use. Destruction warlocks will favor it most, affliction ones will like it the least. Spell crit is only useful if you have ISB (which, however, all raiding warlocks should). Even then, the high amount of rating required for one crit % make it worth less than the other ratings. This post describes well how tradeoffs work. That post is written with destruction warlocks in mind, but it is equally valid for Demonology and to a lesser extent affliction. Rating vs ratio rates: 22.1 crit rating is 1% crit 15.77 haste rating is 1% extra casting speed. 12.6 hit rating is 1% hit Update: more exact numbers are 12.6153 for hit, 15.76923 for haste, and 22.0769 for crit. For even more exact numbers, you can use [url=http://www.wowwiki.com/API_GetCombatRatingBonus] Update: hit vs crit It was demonstrated in this thread that 1% hit is about the same as 1% crit chance dpswise (depending on how you value ISB), for destro locks and better than 1% crit for everyone else. Because hit rating has a much bigger effect on hit chance than crit rating does on crit, hit rating will have a bigger effect on overal dps. Optimal dps strategy is therefore to cap your hit rating using gems, since gems offer equal amount of crit/hit. update: Heroism/Bloodlust do NOT decrease the global cooldown of 1.5s for warlocks. Haste rating does (since patch 2.4) and is therefore a very good stat for any warlock now. Global cooldown is capped 1s, making the haste cap 50%, which is near 800, not obtainable in a raid setting. Haste still suffers from diminishing returns due to your MP5 not contributing, but for most purposes pretty much provides linear increase to your dps. Total dps = unhasted dps * (1+haste rating/1577) Base stats: Stamina Having enough Stamina will prevent you from dying to random aoe abilities. After a certain treshold it will hardly affect you at all. See above for effect on Demonologists. Intellect Intellect will increase your base mana, which isn't very important in pve. In addition, 82 int grants 1% spellcrit, so it roughly 1 int = 0.27 crit rating. (0.3 with kings). Spirit If you have a Priest with Improved Divine Spirit present, 10% of your Spirit goes to spell power. Therefore 1 Spirit = 0.1 spelldamage. (0.11 with kings) Meta gem choices: [Imbued Unstable Diamond] from the Bash'ir event. Requires 100 apexis crystals and surviving the Bash'ir onslaught. [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] [Swift Starfire Diamond], obtained from Spirit Shards. [Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] Chaotic Skyfire Diamond makes crits do 209% damage of a normal hit. (150% x 3% = 154.5%, with Ruin the crit damage bonus is doubled, so 209%) For Destruction and Demonology, [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] will be the best choice, but for Affliction there are multiple choices. Basic gem choices: Most obvious are: [Veiled Noble Topaz] [Runed Living Ruby] Alternatives are: [Great Dawnstone] Used early on to reach the hit cap [Glowing Nightseye] Used only to meet exceptional socket bonuses or Metagem requirements. [Potent Noble Topaz] Used only to meet exceptional socket bonuses or Metagem requirements after reaching the hit cap. These same cuts are available for the Black Temple and Mt. Hyjal epic gems. Todo: There are new haste gems in 2.4. They're likely to be better than the hit/crit equivalents and should be looked up. Feel free to help me out with these. Crafted Gear for warlocks The Spellstrike set is a good option. [Spellstrike Hood] [Spellstrike Pants] [Belt of Blasting] is craftable using two nether vortexes. The pattern drops in SSC off trash. Regardless of spec, tailoring warlocks can get the Frozen Shadoweave Set, which remains useful even in BT. [Frozen Shadoweave Boots] [Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders] [Frozen Shadoweave Robe] For engineers, the [Destruction Holo-gogs] are by far the best choice. They can be upgraded to [Annihilator Holo-Gogs]. The schematic is boe and drops in Sunwell Plateau (from trash, apparently, confirmation needed). Leatherworking provides [Drums of Battle], duration 30 seconds and cooldown is two minute. Chain using these gives the rough equivalent of 20 haste per person, or 100 haste for one person. Alchemy provides [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone]. Trinkets vendor purchasable trinkets: [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] (Darkmoon card reward) [Scryer's Bloodgem] (from vendor, requires scryer reputation) [Icon of the Silver Crescent] (vendor, 41 Heroic Badges) [Ashtongue Talisman of Shadows] (from vendor, requires exalted reputation with the Ashtongue Deathsworn in BT) about the talisman: The highly situational use of this trinket renders it useless to almost all warlocks, given its place in gear progression: Warlocks exalted with the Ashtongue typically already have very good trinkets. On single targets the Icon is better, even for Warlocks that have Instant Corruption. It can outdo the Icon on multiple targets, the theoretical threshold is around 20 Corruption tics per minute, provided you have Corruption talented. As already mentioned [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone] required SSO exalted reputation. [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] drops off Priestess Delrissa (3rd boss in Magister's Terrace) on heroic mode. It is relatively easy to get, considering how good it is. Cooldown is supposed to be 15 seconds with a 10% proc chance. The effect is a mini shadow dot that does not eat ISB but is boosted by it. (confirmation needed). Magister's Terrace and gearing up a new warlock The loot in the new 5 man instance, introduced in 2.4, is far superior to all other dungeon loot in quality. In addition, Kael'thas drops heroic items in normal mode, and all bosses drop epic items in heroic mode. Notable drops on normal mode: [Bindings of Raging Fire] off Selin [Band of Arcane Alacrity] off Vexallus [Cloak of the Betrayed] and [Duskhallow Mantle] off Priestess Delrissa [Gloves of Arcane Acuity] and [Kharmaa's Ring of Fate] off Kael'thas Notable drops on heroic mode: [Jaded Crystal Dagger] off Selin [Fel-tinged Mantle] off Vexallus [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] off Priest Delrissa [Scarlet Sin'dorei Robes] off Kael'thas Consumables to boost dps [Drums of Battle] are the most effective way of boosting raid dps. Using [Super Mana Potion] on every cooldown will boost your dps by reducing Life Tap downtime, especially if you have a [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone]. [Destruction Potion] are the second best option. In fights that have down time where you can replenish your mana, they're the best option. Warlock sets Tier 4 [Voidheart Crown] - Prince Malchazaar [Voidheart Mantle] - High King Maulgar [Voidheart Robe] - Magtheridon [Voidheart Leggings] - Gruul the Dragonkiller [Voidheart Gloves] - Curator 2p set bonus reported to have a 10% proc rate and does proc off dots (confirmation needed). 4p set bonus grants both Corruption and Immolate an extra tic, increasing total damage per cast of Corruption by 16% and Immolate by roughly 12%. Tier 5 [Leggings of the Corruptor] - Fathom-Lord Karathress [Hood of the Corruptor] - Lady Vashj [Gloves of the Corruptor] - Leotheras the Blind [Mantle of the Corruptor] - Void Reaver [Robe of the Corruptor] - Kael'thas Sunstrider 2p set bonus is incredibly good for demonologists, and useless to everyone else. 4p set bonus is worded strangely, it only applies to the base damage of the spell. The exact mechanics are unknown but it can be approximated as follows: for Corruption this resulsts in roughly 15 extra damage per remaining tic, before multipliers like CoS/Misery/ISB. This results in roughly 45-50 extra damage per shadowbolt before multipliers. T6 [Leggings of the Malefic] - Illidari Council (BT) [Hood of the Malefic] - Archimonde (MH) [Gloves of the Malefic] - Azgalor (MH) [Mantle of the Malefic] - Mother Shahraz (BT) [Robe of the Malefic] - Illidan (BT) [Bracers of the Malefic] - Kalecgos (SWP) [Belt of the Malefic] - Brutallus (SWP) [Boots of the Malefic] - Felmyst (SWP) 2p set bonus is nearly useless in raids. 4p set bonus grants 6% to the total damage of Shadowbolt. It is the equivalent of roughly 120-140 spellpower towards shadow bolt at that stage, depending on spec and gear. End game loot choices There is no definitive lists, it all depends on what gear you already have. Hit rating provides most bang for your buck on bosses until it is capped. Everything else is spec dependant. For a rough list, you can punch in these numbers in lootzor.com - World of Warcraft search and rate items - profile your wow character : spell damage = 1, shadow damage = 1, hit = 1 and depending on spec: Affliction: crit = 0.5 Demonology: crit = 1, sta = 0.1, int = 0.1 Destruction: crit = 1. Note that Destruction warlocks will want 4p T6 over any other available gear choice, as 6% bonus to shadow bolts worth more than 100 spell power. Demonologists will want 2p T5 over anything else. Lootzor currently doesn't do haste rating, but haste would be around 1 / 1 / 1.2 for Affliction / Demonology / Destruction. Area of effect spells Seed of Corruption provides the highest dps for any spec and any gear quality, by a large margin. This is of course assuming you're not getting interrupted and hitting more than one target. Hellfire is a bit lower dps, but a lot more mana efficient (although not health efficient, you will require more healing than with SoC + lifetap). Despite the lower damage throughput it still has its uses, especially for destruction warlocks that benefit from the threat reduction on it. It can also be used to instantly blow up Seed of Corruption. Rain of Fire has received a boost, and is a low risk, mana efficient, ranged aoe spell now. Unfortunately its damage is nowhere near competitive with either Hellfire or SoC. Aoe cap: if your seed of corruption detonates for more than 13580 on all targets combined, it will do less damage. When this happens, the detonation damage will be scaled down so that the total is 13580. For example, if you hit 10 targets with it, you will hit each for 1358. This reduction is done after calculating +damage gear, talents and buffs so it is the same for every gear and spec. The exceptions are crits and damage debuffs (like CoS), those will allow you to hit individual targets for more. Curse selection Curse of Shadow - Scales nicely with increasing number of Shadow Priests, Arcane Mages, and Warlocks (and hunters, to a lesser extent). Usually the default curse to put on an enemy. If you use the level 60 version it will not get knocked off by hitting the debuff cap. Curse of the Elements - Boosts fire/frost mages, Warlock fire spells. An obvious choice if you have several of these present. As with CoS, if you use the level 60 version it will not get knocked off by hitting the debuff cap. Curse of Doom - Very high Damage-Per-Casting-Time. Does not get a bonus from Shadow Mastery, for reasons unknown. Demonic Sacrifice with a Succubus will boost the damage by 15%, and ISB will boost it by 20%. Amplify Curse will only boost the base damage of 4200, so it's 2100 extra base damage. Curse of Doom can not crit. Curse of Agony - Ideal for spamming on tanked trash, regardless of spec. Can also be used as an alternative to Curse of Doom, if that one is not an option. CoA is advisable on bosses that reset aggro (unless you can time CoD well), or on anything that will live 24 seconds but not 60. It can outdamage Curse of Doom on a strict dps basis, but you'll need to refresh it more often, resulting in a lower Damage Per Casting Time. At around 1250 spellpower, affliction warlocks with imp CoA, and Shadow Mastery will obtain around equal dps with CoA over unamped CoD. More spellpower will favor CoA. Curse of Recklessness - Stacks with every other armor reducing debuff, and will typically increase melee and hunter damage by around 6% if FF and 5xSunder Armor are present, according to http://elitistjerks.com/498690-post35.html. You typically want as many armor reducing debuffs on a boss as possible, since each one adds more (Increasing Returns, as opposed to Diminishing). It will make the enemy hit slightly harder, though. To be avoided when the boss has an ability that is based on his melee attack power, such as Mortal Strike or Cleave. Useful on enemies that don't hit hard enough for a tank to keep aggro, it will help with their threat generation on those by a small amount. CoD vs CoR: Which one is more profitable depends on the raid setup. More physical dps means CoR becomes better, obviously. Physical Raid Dps needs to exceed (CoD damage / 3.6) for CoR to be the better choice. (CoD dps = CoD damage/60, and CoR dps = Physical dps *0.06). Note however that you need to refresh CoD twice as often. Curse of Exhaustion - Very limited use. Typical use is for Striders during the Vashj fight, and on Mount Hyjal trash. Curse of Weakness - Reduces attack power, but it doesn't stack with the other ap reducing abilities (Demoralizing Shout/Roar). It will get overwritten by a talented Warrior Demo Shout, which any raid community should have. The only possible use for it is if you are raiding without a Warrior and have a Paladin tanking. Immolate vs Shadow Bolt Immolate has a much higher base damage then Shadow Bolt, and both have around the same spellpower coefficient (85%). For this reason, at low amounts of spellpower, keeping Immolate up is clearly a better choice. Some well geared warlocks drop this spell in favor of Shadow Bolt due to any combination of these factors: - Higher hit/crit/haste rating benefits Shadowbolt. - ISB debuff - Most debuffs tend to favor SB instead (absence of CoE, Imp Scorch, CoS, ISB) - More talents into SB (Shadow Mastery, Demonic Sacrifice, Shadow And Flame) - More items that benefit SB ([Ritssyn's Lost Pendant], [Orb of the Soul-Eater], [Nethervoid Cloak], [Boots of the Shifting Nightmare], FSW and Soulfrost) - Debuff slot shortage - Higher mana cost per point of damage, so more life tap down time Whether it's worth it for you should be checked with the appropriate tools: ShadowSeer, Leulier's sheet, DrDamage (all linked below). Even a lower damage-per-casting-time, it is worth it occasionally if you don't think you'll have the time to get a SB off or can't risk threat bursts. Fire vs Shadow Prior to 2.4 there was no choice. With the buff to incinerate, it seems fire has become a viable raid spec. Fire has higher personal dps while shadow still has ISB. I haven't been able to determine yet whether the gain in personal dps can outbalance the loss on ISB. More research is needed. The answer will probably be dependent on the raid setup. Resistances and Spell Penetration The difference between level 60 and level 70 version of CoE/CoS: level 60 CoS has lower reduction (75 vs 88) but the same damage modifier. The level 60 version has higher priority, meaning it will not be pushed off by other debuffs. This is a relic from times before 40 debuff slots, and that the higher rank has lower priority is considered a bug. If you are having issues with debuffs being lost, use the lower rank. With a few notable exceptions (Felhunters in Hyjal, Supremus vs Fire, and Illidari Council) enemies have no resistances above 75. Therefore spell penetration is considered useless in PVE in the majority of fights. All mobs higher level than you an innate resistance, resulting in partial resists that can not be mitigated. Partial resists seem to happen around 15% of the time, resulting in roughly 3% damage mitigation. Warlock tanking For Leotheras tanking, there are a few good posts here. Additional tips and tricks - Obviously, bring a healthy amount of shards to raids. This is especially important for demo/destro, since they often summon demons that require Soul Shards. - There is little reason to use anything but Rank 1 of Drain Soul. - Soulwells are very useful, and it might be convenient to have all three variants in a raid community. Healthstones of different qualities (0/2, 1/2 and 2/2 improved) count as different items, meaning everyone can carry up to 3 healthstones this way. They still share the same cooldown of two minutes, though. Healthstones can crit (based on user spell crit chance) and will heal for 150% in that case. Tools for measuring DPS SWStats (or any other synching damage meter) The other warlock dps spreadsheet is the default source for warlock theorycrafting. ShadowSeer Beta - Measures ISB uptime, and will estimate benefits of crit/hit/haste rating and spelldamage bonuses. not working in v2.4 lootzor.com - World of Warcraft search and rate items - profile your wow character - Gives you a gear list according to stats you fill in Leulier's ISB simulator - predicts ISB uptime using a simulated model DrDamage - WowAce Wiki - will give you in-game theorycrafting Other Debuffcount counts the number of debuffs on a target, useful when you suspect dots are falling off. Loot Rank - replacement for lootzor Warcrafter - create gear sets and get stats, works well with planning and the spreadsheet. Demon - Debuff Monitor (pDebuffList2) - replacement for debuffcount and debuff filter in one Thanks for all the feedback and contributions! Last edited by Arelenda : Yesterday at 12:28 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Tacitus |
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Also, in general you should always gear hit first for bosses, then focusing on spell damage (according to the spreadsheet it gives you more DPS than crit, even with Ruin). Here's a good site for your trinket choices. SimulationCraft/Trinkets/Warlock - Shadowpriest.com Wiki Last edited by Tacitus : 10/12/07 at 5:07 AM. Reason: adding stuff | ||||||||||||
| #3 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | SchLing |
Great summery, but isn't Stamina something more important to a Demo lock than what you make it out to be?
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| #4 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Stangg |
Just skimming over it, this post seems to have been rushed slightly, could do with cleaning up some of the mistakes, as pointed out above "unstable mutation" and also "There is no fixed rotation since your dots are on". On what? Just a couple of examples.
With some of the information a link to sources would also be beneficial, for instance, a link to Nyarlotheps (spelling) write up on demonology is a great resource for people looking to move into this spec. I also remember seeing somewhere a useful tool that can generate figures for raid ISB uptime, I know it's not much help me just telling you these without providing links myself but I don't have time at the moment, if it hasn't been updated at the weekend I'll start searching. Just some suggestions, I was considering making a consolidation post myself over the weekend, but there is an awful lot of information to trawl through and reference, I wasn't expecting one to appear so quickly. | ||||||||||||
| #5 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ◊ Eph |
Couple of things that I see:
The first two Affliction builds links are switched. Title of each build doesn't really match the actual spec, could just call it "PVE Affliction", instead of "- affliction style - Unstable Affliction (41/0/20)" Perhaps an explanation of how Malediction is equal to 2.7%, I haven't seen the math on that. Unimproved CoW is equal to a Warrior's unimproved Demo Shout, but an improved Demo Shout is stronger than an Improved CoW. The level 60 rank of CoS and CoE will not be knocked off on a debuff capped (40 debuffs) target. Curse of Doom's damage is not increased by Shadow Mastery. The ideal level of hit is 16% when fighting bosses and can be reached with 202 hit from gear, or 164 hit with an Elemental Shaman's Totem of Wrath (37.8 hit), or 152 hit with an Alliance Draenei's Aura (12.6 hit.) Add [Void Star Talisman] to the Demonology gear. And just a little nitpick to clean it up a little, maybe take out alot of the extra spaces between sections and bullets and capitalize the section titles. I'll think of more later. | ||||||||||||
| #6 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | doogless |
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If you're stacking stamina for the purpose of getting it back as spell damage via DK, you only get 4.5% of stamina as spell damage. Clearly a 9 spell damage gem is way more useful than one giving 12 stamina. Getting stamina (and to a lesser extent, intellect) back as spell damage is a really nice benefit of a Demo spec, since tier gear especially is loaded down with it, but stamina is not something to specifically itemize for. If you're stacking stamina to keep your pet alive, you need to reevaluate either your pet control skills or whether a Felguard is a viable pet for a given fight. Your pet gets 30% of your stamina, so in order to give him, say, 500 more HP, you would need to itemize for 166 stamina instead of other stats, which is a significant DPS loss. If your pet is dying, stacking stamina is probably not the way to keep him alive - you either need some specific items (2 piece tier 5/void star talisman), a different group composition (read: one with a shadow priest), or better micro skills to keep him out of AoE. | ||||||||||||
| #7 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Thanks for helping me clean it up. | ||||||||||||
| #8 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | doogless |
Nyarlathotep's compiled guide for Felguard raiding can be found here - Raiding With Felguard (SSC, TK, Hyjal, BT) - The Warlocks Den
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| #9 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Chronitia |
Considering the vast size of the warlock megathread, a summary like this for oft-asked questions is a useful thing, thank you.
I feel there is much room for improvement though. Just skimming it I noticed a few things. 1.) Add a section for a 0/40/21 guide. 2.) In the affliction section, emphasize SB spam between dot applications. A common noob mistake is to use drain life. 3.) Also in the affliction section, you tell people to refresh like crazy so they don't lose a tick. This will most likely cause people to refresh a dot before it expires, clipping the last tick and losing a lot of damage. You should tell them to focus on minimizing the gap between dots, but that ~1sec of downtime is normal and fine, and is better than clipping a tick. 4.) Clean up the language. This should not be a casual "this talent is cool" type of thing. Imagine you are writing a thesis. Make statements and support them. If there is a tradeoff, present the tradeoff and provide a conclusion. For example: ![]()
This build focuses on three key talents in demonology and destruction: demonic sacrifice (DS), ruin, and Shadow and Flame (SnF). The result is 21/40 scales with gear better than any other build. The order of priority is Hit > damage > crit. The actual coefficients can best be determined using the spreadsheet linked below, or for a rough guide, use the shadowpriest.com wiki linked below. Q.) Fire or Shadow? Due to the following factors, shadow is always preferred for pve: 1.) ISB generation 2.) Shadowbolt's superior damage coefficient 3.) Prevalence of shadow synergy in raids including shadow weaving and ISB Q.) When does itemization cause this build to rival or surpass affliction? 1.) Affliction gets a huge head start due to tailoring gear, hit capping with dots quickly via suppression, and the mechanics of dots putting spell damage to work while needing virtually no other stats. 2.) While crit is only important if you are the raid's ISB factory, damage and hit are both very important. You should be hit capped (202 hit rating, less if you are always partied with a Draenei or can count on wrath of air totem). Spell damage also scales very well due to shadow and flame. Consult a dps spreadsheet for exact weighting of hit, dmg, and crit for you. 3.) Generally, SSC/Tk is when the lack of affliction upgrades become apparent, and bolting specs come into their own. | ||||||||||||
| #10 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
Thanks a lot for the feedback and contribution!
I have some issues with the following statements though: It's a great set for any warlock, regardless of spec. Demonologists and Destruction warlocks love spellpower too. I'll leave it in the middle. ![]()
And I don't see how one single warlock can provide ISB uptime for the entire raid, so the concept of an ISB factory shouldn't be in the guide, in my opinion. Everything else has been merged into the guide. Thanks! | ||||||||||||
| #11 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arveene |
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Last edited by Arveene : 10/12/07 at 1:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #12 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #13 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arveene |
Well, what kind of gear did you have in your other slots? I would also guess that in Kara with Frozen Shadoweave you started off as an affliction spec, no?
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| #14 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Chronitia |
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While it gives a good leg up to any spec due to it's early availablility, it is only the affliction playstyle that it truely fuels. As said before me, it does not give you the hit (and crit) you need so badly with 21/40. In regards to ISB uptime: SimulationCraft/ImprovedShadowBolt - Shadowpriest.com Wiki One 21/40 warlock with 400 crit rating experiences virtually the same ISB uptime (0.64 vs 0.67) as five 21/40 warlocks with 200 crit rating. All five warlocks upgrading from 200 crit rating to 300 crit rating brings the uptime from 0.67 to 0.73. A 50% increase in crit rating by FIVE members of the raid increases the total ISB uptime by less than 10%. Also any look at a DPS spreadsheet will show crit rating providing 60-70% the benefit of spell damage, and maybe half the benefit of spell hit. | ||||||||||||
| #15 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cohren |
There is definitely more favorable DoT rotations than others. I think the most common or most widely agreed upon rotations are:
CoS/CoE/CoR: CoS/CoE/CoR-->UA-->Corr-->Immo-->SL CoA: UA-->CoA-->Corr-->Immo-->SL | ||||||||||||
| #16 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arveene |
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The problem with a DoT rotation like Curse --> UA --> Corr --> Immo --> SL is your UA, Corr, and Immo timer will sync up every time you refresh them (assuming no resist). Ex. UA applied at the same time as Corr (1.5 sec GCD) Immo (1.5 cast). When Immo is applied both UA / Corr have 15 seconds on their durations. A better rotation would be something like Curse --> UA --> Corr --> SL --> Immo. | ||||||||||||
| #17 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Silverstorm |
I would say the rotation to avoid is UA -> Corr -> Immo. However, that does provide ease of maintenance because all three end, so you know you have to refresh all three at the same time.
Switching the rotations around works for a a little while, but given the 18 seconds of UA/Corr vs. 15 seconds of Immo, they are going to line up again anyway, and you'll lose uptime on Immo, most likely. I'm playing around with dropping Immolate from my rotation (43/0/18 spec) because the DPCT is roughly equal to DPCT of Shadowbolt in our raids (no Fire mages right now, all Arcane). So I have an Immolate that only gets Misery to buff it, compared to a Shadowbolt with Shadow Mastery, Shadow Weaving, Maledicted CoS (from me), Misery, and potential ISB debuff (and maybe something else....I can't remember right now). | ||||||||||||
| #18 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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About ISB theory: Unfortunately, I don't believe the ISB can be accurate measured by any spreadsheet, as the debuff application lags a LOT after the crit. When I wrote ShadowSeer to monitor it, I logged delays of 0.7s, sometimes up to 1.2 seconds. Good luck measuring that with a spreadsheet. The debuff removal can also lag, resulting in extra hits being amped. It also can't take into account how much dots are on the target (dots get amped too). I'll trust ShadowSeer over any spreadsheet, given how much the game mechanics differ from what they're supposed to do in theory. It's still beta, but I think the ISB data it gives me is reliable enough for analysis. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/12/07 at 5:38 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #19 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | djmoccasins |
I really think you should put a 7/43/11 build up there its probably much better damage than the 0/41/20 and less down time and is good all around for PVE and PVP.
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| #20 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Also, I'm modeling raiding specs. PVP viability isn't really considered. | ||||||||||||
| #21 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | djmoccasins |
Oh I'm sorry Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is probably the most popular maybe switching a few points. It provides great damage IF you can keep the pet alive and the instant corruption makes up for the lost crit from the 0/41/20 build
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| #22 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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I don't see how gaining 0.5 seconds on a spell that you cast once every 18 seconds will increase your damage over 5% crit, provided you have ISB. I'll add 1/40/19 to the list, though. Instant corruptions is nice when pvping, but for raid scenario's, I doubt it's 5 talent points in a tree you're not specialising in. | ||||||||||||
| #23 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Antoine |
The real gain is in Improved Lifetap. Improved Corruption helps too, but not as much as imp LT.
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| #24 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
Good point. I can't tell whether it's worth it on the fly. Added.
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| #25 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
I think you should add the PvP/PvE hybrid Demo spec, 7/44/10 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
The gain of imp Life Tap is very high, since it means 20% fewer Life Taps. Also add the note that 1 point in mana feed is enough to allow the Pet to spam Cleave for over 5 minutes. For 21/40, you should add a comment about Fire destro Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, saying it is a good spec if you don't have a shadow priest in the raid, and it is more mana efficient (although losing damage over shadow bolt even without a shadow priest around, due to Incinerate only getting 91.4% +damage added to it). | ||||||||||||
| #26 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
I would point out that for a single shadow lock ISB uptime is very easy to estimate using 1-(1-c)^4.
Expanding that out for a whole raid can be done relatively simply by weighting the crit rate of each member by his share of nukes on the target. Using this weighted crit rate in teh above expression will yield a pretty accurate reading for expected ISB uptime in raids and helps to estimate the gains of crit rating on items outside of personal DPS. EDIT: I would also add that more than most other classes (puuuure speculation) warlocks have a larger variance in their DPCT available to them at any point in time. For example, an affliction lock's DPCT over time varies depending on which DoTs he has active (and what procs/buffs/debuffs are going). Once all his dots are up, his DPCT drops since he's forced to use his lowest DPCT spell, shadow bolt. Saving LT/DP for those low-DPCT valleys, using pots when you have no mana but are in a high DPCT peak, and similar decisions will increase DPS quite a bit over time. Last edited by Trickykid : 10/12/07 at 7:01 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #27 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | KnThrak |
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Due to the lost time, as you say, CoD beats CoA on it's own. However, that is assuming one is always casting when Curse of Agony needs a refresh. Depending on bossfight, it can very well happen that at say 50% of the times when you'd need to cast CoA again, you're moving anyways, not casting shadow bolts. In those situations CoA's superior damage (and superior scaling I think, although this is off top of my head, no calculator at hand) can outdo CoD due to not actually losing much casting time at all. | ||||||||||||
| #28 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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However - The type of fight is rather rare - Affliction locks probably have better things to cast - You can also life tap (or dark pact) during movements instead. This is in fact what I usually do, as 0/21/40. - And if you need to be moving that much, you might want to stick with CoD since it requires less attention, allowing you to focus on what you're running from in the first place - the difference is marginal at best. Over a two minute duration you hit 2 CoD (8400+4*sp) or 5xCOA (5x1356+6*sp). For affliction warlocks with imp CoA it probably is better, since CoA gets 10% from Shadow Mastery and 10% from imp CoA. I'll mention it in the guide. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/12/07 at 11:42 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #29 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | PSGarak |
Specific notes for common raiding thingies:
Darkmoon Card Crusade: Any spec, but especially affliction, has a really easy time keeping this stacked, and getting it stacked while the tank builds threat, because we have spammable low-cost low-agro long-range curses. It's often worth the time to debuff a target to keep the stack rolling. Clicky Trinkets and affliction builds: Clicky trinkets should be saved for when all of your DoTs are going to be refreshed in a small window. If at all possible, on 20-second clickies, try to double-tip corruption and unstable affliction. It's worth saving the trinket for a few seconds, it probably won't cost you an extra activation. Procs and DoTs: Recasting a DoT and overriding a previous one is never, ever worth it, no matter how awesome your proc is. You lose half a tick on average, and the damage gain from the amped DoT is not worth that half a tick. For example, 2pcT4 proc is 135 damage. Over the course of a corruption this comes out to 170ish before debuffs. The lost half-tick of corruption is 250 at that gear level. Ignore your procs, and keep casting as if nothing happened. In a similar vein: while you want as close to 100% DoT uptime as you can manage, you want to absolutely avoid clipping DoTs, and also avoid waiting for DoTs finish. If a DoT is half a second out, cast a shadowbolt and refresh it late. The exception is UA, and untalented corruption: it has a cast time. Remember this. Finally, affliction builds actually do scale really well, it's just that they only scale with damage since crit is marginal and we hit-cap easily. Higher-end gear tends to spend a lot of itemization points on crit and haste, which help destruction far more. It's not exactly a matter of scaling, it's a matter of scaling with the itemization that we will actually encounter in higher raid settings. And yeah, I hear enough about 0/40/21 that it should probably be mentioned. It plays essentially like a felguard build with a sexybus instead of a felguard, but it gears more for crit. Example spec(?): WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator As far as affliction builds go, I would list this: WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator as the absolute bare-bones affliction build, with most of the rest being determine by gear, playstyle, and raid group composition. You will note it's not a viable build: it requires fleshing out. I don't know how to make wowhead's talents do that. | ||||||||||||
| #30 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
After doing tons of test and theorycrafting and writing a complete addon to measure my damage, I've discovered that I've been downranking Immolate for about a year and a half now.
I must have forgotten to update the spell when I learned the AQ20 book. And because it wasn't top rank, it didn't get autoupdated when I learned the new max rank in TBC. No wonder I always hated fire so much. So uh... always use top rank of your dps spells. Thanks for the useful posts, I'll merge them with the guide as soon as possible. | ||||||||||||
| #31 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | jayowen |
For those who raid with a pet out - Sporeling Snacks work on warlock pets (20 stam and spirit).
I'm not sure how long it's been like this as I've only tried felguard recently, but they get the same greater blessings as warriors. Worth knowing when you want to swap light for might, but keep kings for example. Last edited by jayowen : 10/13/07 at 7:20 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #32 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
In 2.3 there is a new food that gives 20 str/spirit to the pet that is a bit better than stam.
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| #33 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Gruknok |
Hey. Ive got this problem. We had a fight with my guilds warlock CO cause of other warlocks performance. Ive noticed a 300-400 dps diference on single target encounters and asked whats the problem.
The answer was: "warlock 1 is in the tank group and he has raid buffing talents so you cant count his dps....... warlock2 is affliction till he ups his +hit, affliction is a pore dps raid bild i dont really want any in the guild. That leaves warlock 3 his gems dont go well with his gear then his spec sucks! ive told him what i want from him, if hes still dose nothing about it i an going to kick him................" I dont believe that builds,group setup can make your dps get stuck at ~600, 700 at best while others in top 5 do ~900-1000 dps. Raid dps 9500-10000. ~12000 dps on hydross/morogrim. Their gear is about the same lvl as rest in guild. builds lock CO World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents ~maxet hit, ~19 crit, ~1270 spell damage lock 1 (tank group) World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents arround 936 spell damage, 15.44% to crit, 125 hit rating lock 2 World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents 1010 shadowl damage, 141 hit rating, 15% crit chance Lock 3 World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents 899 spell damage, 43 penetration, 54 hit rating (horrible i guess), 18.60% crit chance The stats may be slightly diferent cause of grinding/raiding gear and stuff, none was wearing pvp gear though. Shouldnt be much diference id say. Now can anyone confirm that the group setup or hit chance can be the reason of the huge dps diference? Or is it actualy slacking? What would you suggest in such situation? If theres any kind person that would also want some more details i could pm reports and armory links. Last edited by Gruknok : 10/15/07 at 4:57 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #34 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ◊ Eph |
Haste is 15.7 = 1%, right?
Curse of Recklessness, which bosses in BC have an ability based on melee damage? | ||||||||||||
| #35 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
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Going off the info you have posted: The Warlock CO seems to have quite a gear advantage over the rest, even when accounting for Demonic Aegis. Capping hit is very important, and he has done well by capping it. As for his spec I am assuming is uses a Soul Linked Succubus to DPS? If so then his spec makes sense, otherwise I am not too sure, as I haven't heard of anyone using such a spec for anything other than Succy DPS (which is pretty decent damage). Warlock 1: Firstly this warlock is probably always providing a utility curse instead of a damage one, using a damage one would net him an extra 100-150 DPS roughly. Secondly, if I were him i'd drop Imp. CoA (as he's always on CoS/CoE anyway) and put those 2 points into Soul Siphon, 10% threat reduction to affliction damage is nothing to be scoffed at. As for his gear, his hit is low, if he has any gems other than hit ones or ones that contribute towards a hit socket bonus then he should probably regem. His crit is a bit high for an affliction warlock at his gear level (i'm guessing pre-SSC mostly), so I suspect he's using either crit gems or is favoring crit heavy items over something far more useful to his spec, such as hit. Warlock 2: His gear doesn't seem to be too good, he has very low spell damage and way too much crit for somone at his gear level, again, I am guessing he either has crit heavy items or the wrong gems, might want to consider getting some more hit either way. Looking at his talents, the affliction tree is fine, has some talents I wouldn't get but that is a matter of personal preference, he does have all the important ones and that is what matters. However, I would get Destructive Reach in Destruction if I were him, instead of putting 5 points into Demonic Embrace. Then again, I somehow doubt he is having threat issues with his gear setup (unless he has a *lot* more shadow damage than spell damage, which is possible), but if he does, then getting 10% less threat on his Shadowbolts/Immolates would help him output that bit more damage. Warlock 3: Yeah, 18.6% crit as affliction, very low hit and spell penetration (proven to be a useless PvE talent, save for very few bosses such as Supremus, and a number of trash mobs) lead me to believe he really doesn't know what gear suits him best. Need more hit, ditch the crit unless it comes with a piece that is great otherwise, and no spell penetration other than the cloak enchant (20). As for his spec, it is good, it's a common malediction utility build, and you would want two Warlocks with malediction assuming your raid has its fair share of fire mages. And if he already is providing a utility curse most of the time, then that would account for ~100 dps he would have if he were on a damage curse. As far as group setup, if none of the warlocks save the CO are getting a Shadow Priest/Elemental Shaman then I would say that could well contribute to the DPS difference, as well. However, they have other things to worry about right now, such as optimising their gear and specs in some cases. I would also like to touch on the Warlock CO’s comment about Affliction being a horrible DPS spec and that he doesn't want any in the raid save the "utility warlock". At the gear level your guild is at (judging by your own gear and by your mention of early SSC fights as a basis of comparison) Affliction is definitely a more viable spec than Destruction, I personally was affliction till we first stepped into Mount Hyjal, and with the right itemization and dot uptime it is far from being a "poor DPS spec". | ||||||||||||
| #36 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Silverstorm |
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As far as affliction scaling and hit-capping....yes, it's difficult to scale beyond t5 content, since the gear moves toward crit and haste. However, we hit-cap just like any other warlock. Many people mistakenly count Suppression toward hit-capping. True, it helps your DoTs, which are a majority of your damage, but Shadowbolts are still a significant portion of an affliction lock's DPS. As far as affliction wisdom goes, here's my experiences (43/0/18, 6/6 SSC, 3/4 TK): I recently dropped Immolate from my rotation due to poor scaling and no raid synergy (all mages went arcane), and as a result, my Shadowbolt damage has increased it's percentage of my damage. My DPS increased slightly, probably due to less DoT uptime issues given the differing lengths of UA/Corr and Immo. I continue to use Siphon Life, as I'm nearly healer independent if I take no additional damage, however, it's generally a filler spell to get me to the end of a UA/Corr cycle, or cast while moving, provided I don't need mana. I am still very competitive with my damage, despite being the Malediction lock, usually placing top 5 behind the arcane mages, the other affliction warlock, and occasionally a BM hunter. The additional 125-150 DPS from CoA would easily let me catch up, but the increased raid DPS is easily more than 125-150 when you consider we have 3-4 locks, 3 arcane mages, 2 shadow priests, and a boomkin. Unfortunately, the other locks vary from night to night (we have 5, and the two of us that are most consistent are me and the ISB Destro lock). Lesson: Look carefully at your raid makeup and determine if Immolate is worth it. If it's close, test it both ways. | ||||||||||||
| #37 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Gruknok |
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Updated: warlock 2 has 1010 shadow damage. Thanks anyway. Got the idea of what the problem is. Last edited by Gruknok : 10/15/07 at 4:58 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #38 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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In my opinion destruction warlocks gain more from +damage compared to affliction warlocks, due to their spammable spell getting a huge damage boost from it. Math to support that is at the end of the post. I know it's a bit hypothetical, but it's there to illustrate the point, not provide insurmountable proof. Gear with high +damage and nothing else would also be used by destro's and would widen the gap. Incidentally, this is also why FSW is great for destro's too, provided they can obtain acceptable hit/crit on their other pieces. ----- 100 spelldamage extra will add, for an affliction lock: Corruption: 100 * (0.94+0.12*3) * 1.05 * 1.1, due to emp corruption, Contagion, SM) UA: 100 * 1.2 * 1.1 (SM) Shadow Bolt: 100 * (3 / 3.5) * 1.1 (SM) Or: Corruption: 150 damage over 18 seconds, or 8,3dps UA: 132 damage over 18 seconds, or 7,3 dps Shadow Bolt: 94 damage per bolt. Assuming a simplified 20 second rotation of UA/Corruption/SB/SB/SB/SB/SB/LT/DP you'd gain 150 from corruption, 132 from UA, and 5x94 from SB. So a total gain of 753 damage over 20s or 38dps for a destro lock (0/21/40), 100 spelldamage earns: Shadow Bolt: 100 * (3 / 3.5 + 0.2) * 1.15 (SnF and DS) Or: Shadowbolt: 121.5 damage per bolt Assuming something like SB/SB/SB/SB/LT, you'd gain 121.5*4=486 damage over 11.5s or 42dps. This is assuming no crits and no CoD. Both of those are in favor of the destrolock anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #39 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
I am Destro, and I have to agree, pure +damage will help Destro at least as much as Affliction (you forgot Siphon Life in your calcs, which will add a few dps). I still use the FSW boots because they are just that good (if you are hit capped).
However, if Blizzard designed items with pure +damage (think Solarian's pants or Kael's 44 damage cloak), they aren't really that good compared to items that mix stats. Note that if the item designers instead just use +shadow damage (the 53 shadow damage BT/Hyjal trash drop cloak or the Kara trash drop +shadow neck), then it comes out really good due to pure schools being much cheaper in the item budget. | ||||||||||||
| #40 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | tizoxin |
I've seen from a lot of posts here that Curse of Doom isn't affected by Shadow Mastery? Can anyone give me an explanation as to why? Is it simply because of the 200% spell coefficient on Doom or what?
If Shadow Mastery does not affect it, then does the demo sacrifice Succubus 15% affect it? | ||||||||||||
| #41 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Suggestive |
Don't think anyone knows why it doesn't affect it. We could guess all day, but you'd have to ask blizzard to get a definite answer.
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| #42 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Antoine | |||||||||||||
| #43 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | bzk |
I've got a question about Suppression and hit, I'm a little confused about the two. Say I have 5/5 supression and I've got 6% hit on my gear does this mean I've hit the hit cap for a warlock?
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| #44 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | scottemad123 |
Only on your affliction school of spells, your still pretty gimped on your shadowbolts still.
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| #45 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | bzk |
Alright so bascially I should still try and stack hit on my gear and respec out of suppression when I've got the correct amount of hit?
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| #46 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Velict | |||||||||||||
| #47 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Bolche |
Incinerate and Shadowbolt gain the same from spell damage in a standard raid environnment, the only differences are ISB vs better mana efficiency (and ISB > mana efficiency).
Base coefficients : SB : 85.6% Inci : 71.4% In a desctruction build, both SB and Inci gain +20% from S&F, fire gets x110% from emberstorm. And in a standard raid environnment, SB gets x110% from shadow weaving, inci gets x115% from improved scorch. SB : (85.6+20)*1.10 = 116,16 Inci : (71.4+20)*1.15*1.10 = 115.62 | ||||||||||||
| #48 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Morghulis | |||||||||||||
| #49 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #50 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Ujai |
One thing I would like to see is the math of CoD vs CoS/E/R in a rading environment, as our warlocks are rather reluctant to put up anyone but CoS.
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| #51 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arveene |
CoR and CoE
The only bosses we *don't* use CoR on in BT/Hyjal are the following:
Azgalor, Bloodboil, Essence of Suffering, Shahraz, Illidan Azgalor - He already hits pretty damn hard. Bloodboil - We already get crappy fel rage targets, don't really want to make it any worse. Essence of Suffering - Need to make sure he hits Fixate targets for as little as possible. Shahraz - Obvious reasons Illidan - I'm not 100% sure if we should put it up there or not. We recently had a change of MTs, so we're not going to try it quite yet - but may soon. These are the only bosses I can think of off the top of my head where we don't use CoR normally. ![]()
It's actually really easy to do this. For elements and shadows usually if there are 2+ members who will benefit from them they should be put up. As for the math it's pretty simple. Take the DPS of CoD and compare it to the total increase of DPS the raid will get from CoE. (Ex. CoD DPS = 100. 2 fire mages who do 1000 dps overall = 1000x2x10% = 200 DPS.) That doesn't even take into account less partial resists for the mages as well. You can do the same exact math for CoS as well. For CoR it gets a bit trickier and depends on the mobs armor. Once you figure out the mob's armor you do the same thing as you do to calculate CoE. Last edited by Arveene : 10/15/07 at 11:25 AM. Reason: Added CoR / CoE | ||||||||||||
| #52 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Crepe |
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Hydross past 50% aura (I alternate between CoW and CoR) Morogrim (though a druid MT seems to handle it fine) Tidalvess (WF totem + CoR = bad news) Al'ar phase 2 (missed taunt on melt armor = bad news) We're still working on Kael, but CoR should be ok on all of the adds as well as Kael himself. I'd avoid CoR on the Kael trash that does the Arcane Flurry, as I like to use fear to interrupt that spell (though rogues have been getting better about gouging it). For T4, I wouldn't use CoR on HKM or Mags unless your MT can take those nasty Cleave/Melee combos without much issue. CoR is bad news on Gruul past 7-8 grows. EDIT: If we only have two warlocks, we usually prioritize CoS and then CoR. This is because there tends to be more shadow/arcane users in the raid (warlocks, spriests, moonkin, and arc mages) and physical DPS (rogues, hunters, warriors, feral druids, enh shaman, and ret pallies). Fire/frost users are exclusively mages and it's rare for us to have more than 2-3. | ||||||||||||
| #53 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Silmeria |
CoR on Morogrim is fine, we do it all the time as do most raids (from my research going through other WWS parses). His damage output is increased slightly, and since it's just white attacks, it's pretty trivial.
CoR on Al'ar is fine, a hit on melt armor with CoR is roughly 700 damage more. Just be ready for it and you'll be alright. Al'ar dying faster = less meteors, less birds, and less chances for mistakes. CoR on Tidalvess is fine too, it's a trivial amount of damage increase, it's just a bigger series, all mitigated. The thing to remember about CoR is that it just effects the base AP, if it's not multiplied by anything (like cleave, or enrage, etc), then it's going to be fine. CoR on everything that doesn't have a special attack pretty much, or if your melee DPS really isn't touching the mob. | ||||||||||||
| #54 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
For CoR, I use it on all bosses except Azgalor (due to silence, and the imp demo shout guy is tanking the demons) and Bloodboil (I use it most of the time, just remove during Fel Rage).
Everything else gets Recklessness, because with imp Demo Shout the attack power gain is very small. | ||||||||||||
| #55 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Eph |
81.92 Int = 1% crit.
Stat values in comparison to each other: Probably specify that dmg>crit for destruction. Also from my tinkering with the spreadsheet, 1 haste isn't quite worth 1 dmg (1:0.97) this may just be for my specific gear and spec though, but I'd like to do/see some more concrete math on it, especially with the load of new haste items in 2.3. And perhaps we should add a little more detail to our stat comparisons similar to how the rouge guide did it: ![]()
Last edited by Eph : 10/16/07 at 12:42 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #56 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Silverstorm |
Correct me if I'm wrong, but our values vary widely by spec, given the relative crit of each build, as well as the larger emphasis on Stamina for Demo locks. The weighting to +hit and +crit also is impacted by our +dmg. About the best we have right now is the "Next Stat Value" section in Leulier's spreadsheet (linked in the original post).
Attack Power is quite linear and easy to model (from discussions I've had with a feral druid friend), whereas caster stats are very much interdependent. Also, for CoR modeling, here's the posts you need: Boss Armor: [RAID] Boss armor values CoR benefit: http://elitistjerks.com/498690-post35.html These assume both Sunder and Faerie Fire are already up, so the increase is 5.69% (7700 armor bosses) or 6.36% (6200 armor bosses). So, if PhysicalDPS * CoR_Reduction > CurseOfDoomDPS, do CoR on appropriate bosses. Given a 10k Curse of Doom, here's the calculation to determine if physical DPS is high enough: 10000 / 60 = 166.66 DPS for CoD. 166.66 / .0569 = PhysicalDPS = 2929.115 on the higher armor bosses. For lower armor, same calculation, but .0636: 10000 / 60 / .0636 = 2620.545 Physical DPS Even simpler, here's what you multiply CoD by to find the required physical DPS: 7700 armor: multiply CoD damage by .2929115 (or .293 to be easy) 6200 armor: multiply CoD damage by .2620545 (or .262 to be easy) If physical DPS is higher than the result, use CoR. If not...go ahead with CoD, and your raid probably has more issues than CoD vs. CoR. | ||||||||||||
| #57 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Eph |
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| #58 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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The original poster is right, stats are weighted differently across specs and gear levels. They even differ with raid setup and per encounter. Being hit capped is very nice against bosses, but a huge waste for the majority of Hyjal, for example. I wrote ShadowSeer to do just that: determine my personal benefit from each rating. Example here. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/16/07 at 6:07 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #59 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cohren |
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| #60 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #61 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Raithlin |
Further to the 'raiding demo lock' discussion heres a quick question - do Felguards benefit from Windfury, or any other synergy related effects/abilities other than SPs? i know they can get battleshout, but with that group perpetually made up of rogues and hunters its not one i as a demo lock am going to break into anytime soon.
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| #62 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Shai |
They benefit from all group-wide buffs, like LOTP, BS and Ferocius Inspiration. Can't comment on WF as we rarely have a shaman, and when we do he naturally goes with the melee.
For the short time I've tried Felguard spec, I was usually in a hunter, hunter, feral group. Not optimal, but can't complain about double FI for both the lock and the pet. | ||||||||||||
| #63 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Chronitia |
Just a few more notes on 40/21 since it's still sparse. Here are a few tips:
1.) You really need to get into a group with a shadow priest, even if that means losing totems 2.) At least until void star talisman (which I still havn't gotten), I found it necessary to give up 2% crit out of demonic tactics in order to get 3/3 demonic resilience and 3/3 fel stamina 3.) Bind "pet attack" to an easy hot key, as well as "pet follow" which ends up being called "special action bar X" where X is which icon the "pet follow" command is on. being able to pull your pet in and out of whirlwinds, spore quakes, etc is key | ||||||||||||
| #64 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Silmeria |
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Strength of earth totem, ILoTP, battle shout, etc; basically any direct buff will effect your pet. And quite nicely too. | ||||||||||||
| #65 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Raithlin |
Thanks for that. Regarding Felguards and Shadow priests, it seems to me that with 2/3 Mana Feed and T2 set bonus you have basically removed the need for a SP, and it would thus benefit you more to join a melee group. Seeing as you essentially bring nothing to the melee however, you can basically forget it.
With 2/3 Mana Feed and T2 2-set bonus, the only really important synergy to obtain is the oomkins 3% crit aura. An SP is no more than a safety net for the more intractable boss fights. For those of you interested in demo raiding, my profile link below will take you to what imo is the optimal raiding demo spec. | ||||||||||||
| #66 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Shai |
With 1 point in Mana Feed I've never seen the Felguard run oom. I'd rather shuffle some points around to get Intensity. Spell pushback can be quite annoying, especially when using /stopcasting.
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| #67 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Vazu |
As far as Demonology builds go, I can't really see anything being better than 7/44/10 honestly. Once you pickup 2 pieces of T5 + Void Star Talisman, the build is just incredibly fun and outputs a shitload of DPS. I pretty regularly pull 1300+ combined DPS, assuming the fight doesn't completely shutdown my Felguard. There aren't very many fights where I can't use him anymore. Watering down a Felguard build with Devestation and losing 2/2 LT and instant Corruption is a really bad idea IMO. Without Ruin and generally because Demo Warlocks prefer everything else (Hit, Haste, Spellpower) > crit, it's really underwhelming.
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| #68 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ninielin |
Hmm disagreeing with you Vazu. I raid with a build 1/43/17 ( or 1/41/19 should I need instant such as shadowburn for a few fights like vashj) and I don't really see what instant corruption will bring to you ( gcd powa) over 1 point in corruption, nor do I see the DPS power of improved LT ( do have a SP all the time tho so maybe I m biased here). Seems to me its a lot of wasted points especially considering that crit certainely isn't useless as you will proc more ISB the more crit you have.
That said on a fight where my felguard isn't shutdown and can dps most of the time or even all the time ( about everything in ssc/tk), I m running at 1400, sometimes 1500 + dps depending on the dps time.Don't have any T6 yet, we're on kael. | ||||||||||||
| #69 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | vokzhen |
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Incinerate: SnF, Sac, Emberstorm, Scorch, Misery, talented CoE. 1.578 per +dmg Shadow Bolt: SnF, Sac, Weaving, Misery, talented CoS 1.587 per +dmg, with 0% ISB uptime; 60% uptime pushes Sbolt to 1.777. That's a significant difference. As you said, ISB > mana efficiency, and Sbolt scales quite a bit better as it is. In addition, shadow gets increased bonus from CoD and Corruption, if it's used. | ||||||||||||
| #70 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #71 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Vazu |
Yeah, try raiding nearly 100% of the time w/o a shadow Priest in your group. We always give them to Mages, then Hunters and healers leftover mixed into those groups. So I'd say yeah, it's pretty unfair to assume raiding w/o 2/2 Imp. LT is good unless you are guaranteed to have a shadow Priest. It's hard to deny how an additional 300+ mana/tap wouldn't contribute to your long-term DPS. I mean, there's just no arguement there if you don't have a mana battery.
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| #72 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Lilnietzsche |
Question regarding warlock cast cycle
In regards to cast cycle, it seems taken for granted that immolate should be included. I am not stating that it should not be included, but in regards to an afflicition lock, I'm wondering if with the correct spell crit and desparity between shadow and fire damage that it would be better to cast another sb, even if it takes another second to cast. The reason I ask this is two fold. First, sb has much better damage coefficients than immolate. Second, when sb crits you get ISB effect as well as overall a lot more damage than if the initial immo blast crits. Especially when starting out with the fsw set, it is not uncommon to have 200+ more shadow damage than fire. I'm wondering if anyone has had some experience with the math behind this. This question is from the persepective of one beginning raids, but I'm much intrigued by the theory crafting I have seen so far, and it seems to be a lot of fun.
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| #73 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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You aren't gaining much from 5% to crit in addition you only need 1 point in Mana Feed, FG gets 1 spirit tic between Cleaves. However, once you are in Black Temple the boss RoS on Phase 2 and 3 does damage to everyone, so the 70% less interruption talent would be helpful, although not required. | ||||||||||||
| #74 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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I mostly use it right after the pull, before solid aggro has been established. No really high crit SB at the start that way ,and the Priest Shadow Weaving hasn't kicked in fully yet either, at that point. But with _everything_ (talents, gear quality and setup and raid setup) in favor of SB, it's still only marginally better. Under most circumstances, Immolate will just be preferable. You might want to try ShadowSeer to run the numbers for you, though. It does calculate damage-per-casting-time, and takes all talents including ISB and the combined immolate-hit+dot into account. | ||||||||||||
| #75 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
The problems I seem to be having with the FG build atm are that I do not have two piece t5 so he dies a lot since our healers dont heal him much or at all some times. Also I have to beg for buffs for my pet which gets old and pretty much just pisses me off by the end of the night. Also since I dont have any aggro reduction talents I draw a lot of aggro (not pull) so I have to be careful. I had a hell of a time on Al'ar lastnight, it was my first time doing it and my FG died too many times.
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| #76 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Raithlin |
I would have to disagree with this. An extra 5% to crit is a huge dps boost by itself, giving you much more than you could output with the extra time from imp. life tap. THEN when you include the increase in proc from imp. SB youve just increased your dps exponentially.
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| #77 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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I'm using an MSD and because of that putting corruption down to an instant cast helps insure I don't lose dps time due to altering my casting rotation to maximize focus procs. Generally though, I do agree that 1/43/17 and close variants are the *best* felguard raiding spec. Even though we don't gain nearly as much from crit as a ruin 'lock would the raid still sees more ISB time which leads to more raid dps overall. On paper however, with static variables (read taking a spreadsheet which assumes a base ISB uptime regardless of your own crit rating or talents) I'm pretty sure imp. lifetap pulled ahead of the crit talents by a fair margin. Again though this assumes static variables and doesn't take into account things such as how much ISB uptime you add by increasing your own crit, nor the possibility of being grouped with a shadow priest. On a personal note I'm either going to respec full destruction once the MSD nerf goes live or to 1/43/17. Not sure yet though if I'll be gemming the new crit meta or an old school spell damage one but either way I'll be dropping MSD. The nerf back to six seconds of focus time plus the internal cooldown addition doesn't make it worth the gemming requirements at my current gear level. | ||||||||||||
| #78 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
One build I dont see here is the 30/21/10 succy sac hybrid build. Its a very good and viable raid build that puts out good numbers.
Theorycraft/Caster DPS Comparison - Shadowpriest.com Wiki | ||||||||||||
| #79 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
Someone brings up that stupid build every week and thinks it's good. It may look good on paper but its pretty terrible. No ruin, no shadowburn, no pet...what's the point? Its DPS sucks and is horrible to play.
If someone specs that they are pretty dumb. Btw I can't find a character with your name on Armory or anyone in your guild with that name, do you even play a warlock? | ||||||||||||
| #80 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ probiscus |
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In short, if you're going to post something, have something worth posting. In order to determine if you have something worth saying, you need to get yourself up to speed. It also helps, as Rochan pointed out, to have a fucking working profile. | ||||||||||||
| #81 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ninielin |
how about cooling off some ? I don't think EJ needs to turn into fohguild.org....
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| #82 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
WOW you are a pretty angry little person. So if the build didnt work for you and you found it hard to play then it must be horrible I guess. So when you specced into that build were you dumb in doing so?
Looks good on paper can be said for pretty much all the builds, aggro issues, movement during fights, being incapacitated during an encounter are just some of the things a spreadsheet cant accurately account for. Funny you list no pet as a complaint for this build when you are running 0/21/40, dont you sac the succy too? BTW I do play a warlock, do you? | ||||||||||||
| #83 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arveene |
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He has a good reason to be angry, that spec has been brought up in the warlock thread numerous times and everytime it's been proven as a bad spec compared to the others. If you had read the thread and kept up with it you would have known this and never had asked the question in the first place. Compared to a 41+/0/18+ build you lose 5% crit of SB and UA + pet utility / malediction / shadow embrace Compared to a 0/21/40 build you lose ISB Uptime / 8% crit Compared to a 7/43/11 build or any variant of you lose either 5 or 10% crit / more ISB uptime. You'll also miss out on a little bit of more spell damage / damage increase from MD/SL. (depending on the fight of course) It's also a very versatile spec. On each of these builds, you provide more benefit to the raid via pet utility or more ISB uptime. With a 30/21/10 build you really don't provide much to the raid. Especially since the build does less damage than a destruction or affliction build. Last edited by Arveene : 10/18/07 at 5:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #84 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
Thank you for the calm response Arveene. I have kept up with the threads and I have also kept up with Warlocks who do run this build and have seen their WSS logs.
Again on paper I will not argue those other builds sometimes appear better but in practice they may not. I mean if I can sit there an spam bolts with a 0/21/40 build without aggro issues, without ever being interrupted sure its most likely a better build. But the encounters are too dynamic with too many variables that a spreadsheet cant account for. I certianly dont see it as the best build of all time or anything like that but I do see it as a decent good DPS build with a wider play style than full affliction or destro. I did post a link with information and if I was at home I could post other comparisons that show this build as dps viable (not complete crap as some are making out to be). Its not like I just posted the question and had nothing to atleast back up the numbers some what. But I guess we can agree to disagree. Last edited by Cronjob : 10/18/07 at 6:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #85 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Praetorian |
Deep breaths, people.
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| #86 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trippy |
Let 30/21/10 die.
Let's argue about 40/0/21 instead. | ||||||||||||
| #87 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
In addition to this you lose pretty much all the utility of deep affliction builds and gain really nothing in return except straight damage.
30/21/10 looks really neat on paper, all that stacking of shadow damage, but what it really boils down to is this. No pet, no malediction, no soul link for warlock tanking, most likely only 1 point in SE if any, terrible crit, nearly as much debuff space used as a full affliction 'lock, high aggro generation, and a casting rotation that relies on dot casts thus furthering the gap between itself and the other 'petless' build 0/21/40 when it comes to ISB uptime. Of the two petless builds 0/21/40 gives more back to the raid and all you really see in return is a build that does what affliction does but with less utility. It may do slightly more damage but is that trade off really worth it when it comes to raiding? Keep in mind the title of this thread before responding to that question. | ||||||||||||
| #88 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
No one is saying 30/21/10 will put you down with the tank on DPS. The point is that (as Krathis points out) it brings zero benefits to the raid. I'm fine with classes bringing zero buffs to raids so long as they put out enough DPS to make up for it. The problem with 30/21/10 is that it's "viable" in terms of DPS. You'll probably beat some mages and hunters, but it just doesn't have the same multipliers coming out of the talents as 21/40 (the closest raid-role a lock can take to 30/21/10).
SnF ends up adding as much DPS as Shadow Mastery once a certain gear level is achieved. Then you toss in Ruin, 8% more crit (which, let alone personal DPS, helps the rest of the raid) and destruction-spell threat reduction. In the face of that, 30 in affliction brings instant, empowered corruptions, a better life tap and affliction-spell threat reduction. In short, it doesn't bring the same raid-buffs to the table as 21/40, in most cases will do the same or less damage, and scales worse if given Shaman/SP/Moonkin buffs. If I were a raid leader I'd have to wonder... | ||||||||||||
| #89 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Also, you'll find my opinion here: http://elitistjerks.com/506250-post2109.html Although I might be wrong about Immolate (I had it downranked at the time, severely skewing my data on it). Either way, losing 8% crit and ruin and SnF to get imp lifetap, emp corruption and shadow mastery is obviously not the way to go. And please, people, let's stay polite. We're trying to construct a resource. No need to get personal, it detracts from the goal. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/18/07 at 8:45 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #90 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Idk |
The attitude is certainly uncalled for, let's please keep this civil.
There's one aspect of 29/21/10 + 1 that I think people fail to consider. It combines the 'survival' talents of the lower demo tree (DE, imp HS, Fel Stam, DA) with a small part of the self-sufficiency talents of the affliction tree (at least siphon life for self-healing that comes with +25% shadow damage) while maintaining solid personal DPS (not the best but certainly up there). I think it's easy to forget that 0/21/40 and X/41/XX are very healing-intensive builds. On the other side, the standard deep affliction build misses the early demo talents which results in a non-trivial health pool hit (even running with an imp). For a young raiding guild or a still undergeared lock, the 29/21/10+1 may be a good way to provide damage without putting stress on the healers and maintaining a pretty beefy health-pool. Yes, it's situational but might be a good fit for the right person in the right situation. In fact, I'd be interested in seeing the dps difference between 30/21/10 and 41/5/11+4 for early raiding gear levels. Just because a build isn't good for your situation doesn't mean it's a bad build. | ||||||||||||
| #91 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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But Affliction does not really have survivability issues, due to high mobility, Dark Pact, Siphon Life, Blood Pact and if necessary Drain Life. Neither does Destro, due to the 21 points demonology. The self sufficiency point is valid. No doubt about that. Especially for starting guilds, having to heal warlocks that have been tapping might put a strain on undergeared healers. However, the build is undeniable much worse in terms of dps versus 0/21/40. Losing 8%crit AND Ruin AND SnF(vsSM) for increased personal self-sufficiency is harsh. Especially if survivability is an issue, because you don't have an imp out. Blood Pact will boost hp pools of classes that actually do have issues with staying alive at low gear levels (Mooncloth Set being the prime example). Not to mention beginning groups actually need high dps from dps classes more than anything. Just compensate with healthstones, healing/mana/rejuv pots, and if push comes to shove, bandage/drain life. Or ditch the 30/21/10 guy and replace him with a healer. As long as you don't tap too aggressively you'll get hots or other mana efficient heals anyway, by a raid healer. If you're concerned about self-sustainability, FSW or Soul Leech will help mitigate the problem. The builds in the Compendium aren't set in stone, the compendium itself mentions that. By design, it mentions standard builds and explains their strengths and weaknesses, giving reasonable alternatives. This spec has too limited use to warrant its inclusion, in my opinion. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/19/07 at 5:19 PM. Reason: Clearing up possible misunderstanding | ||||||||||||
| #92 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Darkmantle |
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WPUATOUOE(Wow players united against the over use of exponential) *Feeding extra mana to spriests isn't going to create an exponential gain its just going to mean less mana consumables needed to achieve full burn and the full burn situation is still the upper bound for caster dps. | ||||||||||||
| #93 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | tizoxin |
Does anyone have a link to anything conclusive that proves that CoD is not affected by SM? If it is indeed not, shouldn't this be a bug that Blizzard should fix? It seems kind of silly, and the first time I have seen this noted was on this site, although I did notice that doom seems to hit harder in my 0/21/40 build unamped.
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| #94 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
Shouldn't be hard to find out. max rank CoD hits for 4200 + 200% * spellpower. It should take exactly one minute for a SM warlock to find out whether it's affected.
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| #95 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Vazu |
I realize there's a trinket simulation based on spec, but I'm curious to hear feedback from players who have the Ashtongue Talisman of Shadows. In a couple of weeks, I should have it. Which will give me access the following trinkets to rotate in/out.
Ashtongue Talisman of Shadows Void Star Talisman Darkmoon Card: Crusade Icon of the Silver Crescent Assuming I can keep 10x Crusade up, it always gets a trinket spot. Depending on the resists involved, I may or may not use VST as my second trinket with a Felguard out. The question is, for a single target burn encounter, would ATS be better than the Icon? I'm not concerned with anything 2+ targets. I know the ATS is better in that situation, assuming it has no internal cooldown. But everything I've ready has the both of them very close for single target encounters. | ||||||||||||
| #96 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Bolche |
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| #97 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Zephro |
There's no mention of Siphon Life in the Affliction section. Its damage per cast time is pretty high; is there any reason not to cast this?
(I realise it takes a load off your healers, I just mean in pure dps terms). | ||||||||||||
| #98 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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It's probably worth keeping in the rotation for the life drain, but it doesn't seem exceptionally good damage, on first glance. Far below other dots for dpsct, but better than Shadow Bolt. 30 second duration is long, though. Losing tics will make it worth less, so only worth it if your target is going to live for 30 seconds. You can test for yourself using Leulier's spreadsheet for theorethical values, or ShadowSeer for some recorded data. | ||||||||||||
| #99 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Idk |
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Destro can survive large damage spikes but has crap for personal healing and self-sufficiency. ![]()
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946 dps with 0/21/40, -5000 hp/min 953 dps with 43/0/18, +2200 hp/min 969 dps with 30/21/10, -700 hp/min For reference, at these dps figures the value of FSW healing is about 1000 hp/min. 30/21/10 doesn't come out all that bad.. top damage, almost self-sufficient (it is SS with FSW), and a big health pool. I would personally take deep affliction with a few sacrificed points for the extra utility, but I really can't say that 30/21/10 is a useless build in this context. | ||||||||||||
| #100 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
If someone actually plays and enjoys 30/21/10 I congratulate them for being able to play a spec with absolutely no fun or helpful aspects. No UA, Malediction, Shadow Embrace, Dark Pact, Ruin, extra crit, Shadowburn, SnF, pet, gimped SB range. It's basically like playing a mage :P Not to mention if you have a lot of warlocks/spriests you won't even cast siphon life due to debuff limits.
You do OK damage and are of no help to the raid. | ||||||||||||
| #101 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Silentuviel |
Sorry duplicated post, please remove.i'll try to add some positive feedback to the current discussion. Sorry again.
Last edited by Silentuviel : 10/19/07 at 1:04 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #102 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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41/5/15 offers more utility and still gives you DE. Also you end up with dark pact which is a better survival talent then any of the early demonology talents (except possibly DE) in my opinion because you life tap less, meaning your health pool is topped off more often, in addition to this you'll almost always be using an imp which gives you another 700 hp or so to deal with spike damage. As far as the early raiding gear comparison, I ran some numbers through Leulier's spreadsheet using the following, 900 shadow and fire damage, 12% base crit, and 6% hit rating. Used the base spread sheet assumptions of 60% ISB uptime, 1.13 CoS, 1.1 CoE, full scorch stack, misery, and full shadow weaving. 30/21/10 - 903 dps (-14.81 hp/s) (Note 30 more spell damage because of DA) 41/5/15 - 895 dps (+32.71 hp/s) (Note this build has 4% more crit because of devastation) 21/0/40 - 871 dps (-21.8 hp/s) (Note this build has 8% more crit because of devastation and backlash) 0/21/40 - 906 dps (-111.62 hp/s) (Note this build has 8% more crit because of devastation and backlash, and 30 more spell damage because of DA) And some comparisons at 1200 shadow and fire damage, 16% base crit, and 13% hit. Going to leave out the notes on adjusted crit and spell damage for talents on this one but they'll be in the calculations. 30/21/10 - 1180 dps (+8.07 hp/s) 41/5/15 - 1155 dps (+51.48 hp/s) 21/0/40 - 1248 dps (+16.78 hp/s) (Note that the math here has been double checked and proven to be wrong, best I could reproduce for this spec was about 1180 dps with a similar hp/s) 0/21/40 - 1215 dps (-103.14 hp/s) Conclusion, 30/21/10 scales better then UA builds but doesn't match the efficiency of dark pact. Granted it's drain life is more beefy thus allowing you to recover from spike damage faster then a UA build would. Rather or not the 8 dps gain at early gear levels or the 25 dps gain at later gear levels is worth the trade off in ISB uptime or possibly losing malediction (keep in mind all these numbers use shadow malediction in the calculations) we can debate all day but there's the numbers for anyone that was curious. *edit* Something I forgot to mention in these number comparisons is that every spec was put on curse of elements. Given that running a damage curse over a debuff curse would be an option the spec that would gain the most would be 30/21/10, followed by 0/21/40, 41/5/15, and 21/0/40. All sac builds used a succubus sacrifice, all casting rotations where for optimal damage allowance according to the spreadsheet except life tap which was simply left 'as needed', the filler spell was shadow bolt for every spec, and no pet damage was used in any comparison. It's probably worth mentioning that if you raid with four warlocks 30/21/10 could produce some pretty good numbers. For one you'd have three other warlocks helping to maintaining ISB, you'd have three other warlocks to take care of curse of elements, shadows, and recklessness leaving you open to using doom or agony, and most likely you'd have at least one affliction warlock maintaining SE and/or Malediction. Debuff space however could be an issue especially if more then one of the other 'locks was affliction and more then one shadow priest was in the raid. Last edited by Krathis : 10/23/07 at 12:44 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #103 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
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These are all good comparisons as are the ones done by IDK. All of which shows the point I was trying to make earlier, which is 30/21/10 is not complete crap as some try to make it out to be and SHOULD be included in as a hybrid build especially if you already have other locks filling the support roles. I'll state this again, non of the spreadsheets account for the intangibles of each encounter. Movement, incapacitation/silencing effects, having to pick up CoR/CoS/CoEl if that lock dies and everything else thats not tank and spank without aggro issues. Its just like the old SM/Ruin build pre BC, not the best at one particular thing but just a good all around versatile build. | ||||||||||||
| #104 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Idk |
Instead of getting personal opinions about who likes and dislikes the 30/21/10 playstyle, why don't we put an entry in the first post with a brief explanation about it.. the pros, the cons.. the few cases where it shines and the reasons why you should probably pick another spec. Now that we've had an intelligent discussion about it and looked at it from both sides we should have enough info to fill out a front page entry.
If you do that you won't have people asking once a week about it. | ||||||||||||
| #105 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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Something I forgot to mention in my comparison above was that all the builds where assumed to be using a debuff curse as opposed to a damage curse. I'm going to edit it to include that information and point out which specs gain the most from being on a damage curse. | ||||||||||||
| #106 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Adding. Oh, by the way, the remark about healing warlocks that didn't take damage was not intended to be sarcastic. I was trying to make the distinction between "paying life" (life tap/hellfire/soulshatter) and "taking damage" (everything else). I'll update the original post. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/19/07 at 4:12 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #107 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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My point is that Destro can be self sustainable through consumables, FSW (which every starting warlock can use, regardless of spec) and Soul Leech. If it wants to. There's no need in most fights. Almost every fight has a pocket where you're stable and you can easily get some hots thrown to you. I typically try to be at 80-90% health at all times so I can benefit from Soul Leech procs. When I get a hot thrown, I'll tap to make it last the full duration. For reference: http://wowwebstats.com/5upyasekfvthq?s=553-1580&a=7 a WWS from Kael'thas. (18 minute fight) I'm using 0/21/40, with two poins in Soul Leech. Soul Leech heals me for about 25k. (1200 per minute) I used 41 lifetaps during the Kael'thas fight for a total of 67k health. For comparison, hypothetical gains from FSW - 2% * 580k * 1.26 is roughly 14k. For comparison, hypothetical gains from spamming rejuv pots: 9x4600 is roughly 42k So if I spam potions, I can do the entire fight being self sufficient. That's not counting healthstones. And this is for a 18 minute fight, with no shaman or spriest. Soul Leech will obviously not work for damage spikes while moving. In fact, it won't work against damage spikes at all. But Siphon Life or Imp Life Tap won't help much there either. Spike damage requires healing (or pots, or stones). I was arguing about self sufficiency over a large period of time. Fights where large damage spikes are an issue will favor Affliction anyway, since they have Blood Pact. FSW at my gear level is 14k over 18 minutes. I'd say 400-600 per minute might be a more realistic average for starting raid comms. | ||||||||||||
| #108 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Idk |
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| #109 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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This of course assumes just random spike damage as opposed to constant spike damage such as warlock tanking. In which case I'd take 0/21/40 over any affliction build that didn't include at least DE. | ||||||||||||
| #110 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Idk |
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| #111 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Suggestive |
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As far as the 30/21/10 discussion goes, its undeniably decent enough DPS. It simply brings close to 0 utility that isn't trumped by other builds to the raid so its not seen much. Kind of a jack of all trades, but master of none. Last edited by Suggestive : 10/20/07 at 4:21 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #112 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Not that it makes your point less valid. There is no way it can keep up with a bolting spec, with Shadowbolts that hit for less and crit 8% less. It loses in straight dps vs destro, it doesn't get any of the support things the other specs do (Malediction, -5% damage, blood pact for affliction, high ISB uptime for destro). The _only_ upside is that you require less healing. | ||||||||||||
| #113 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Suggestive |
I had imp lifetap and nightfall accounted for too, i should have mentioned that. It just blew me away that he showed 21/0/40 ahead at all, so i checked.
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| #114 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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Got 1194 at +4.89 hp/s for 21/0/40 and 1245 at -93 hp/s for 0/21/40. I'm questioning rather or not open office reads the spreadsheet correctly but did manage to reproduce at least the dps on both these specs by opening and closing the program and reentering the data (though the hp/s came out way different on the 21/0/40 build the second time around). Not saying human error couldn't have accounted for the original mistake but I've seen some odd behavior from the spreadsheet with open office so it does have me wondering. | ||||||||||||
| #115 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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The other advantage I see to using a 21/0/40 build is the damage you gain in movement heavy fights from using corruption and sl. All that said I'll probably use the old standby if I ever make the permanent switch from demonology. | ||||||||||||
| #116 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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21/0/40 is definitely a viable alternative. You take a hit in personal damage, and in hit points, but you're more mana/health efficient and provide blood pact. | ||||||||||||
| #117 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
21/0/40 is certainly a decent build if you have to have an imp out and still get a good use out of Crit gear.
Assuming you didn't have an UA lock (why else would you need an imp out), you lose is malediction and 1-5% less physical damage, which does make a big difference, likely moreso than the extra damage, if any, from 21/0/40. | ||||||||||||
| #118 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Furio |
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Unless you're regularly using an Imp for the MT because you're the only warlock in the raid, it just doesn't make sense for a warlock DPS spec to use an Imp. And, if that is the case, then you'd be far more useful to your raid respeccing to an affliction utility build (something similar to this). Granted, it's conceivable that Malediction is wasted on CoR in a particularly melee heavy raid. In that instance, however, 21/0/40 is still only comparable to the other DPS specs if you're routinely using an Imp for the MT; but, if so, you're still better off with a UA spec because Shadow Embrace further enhances the MT's survival. The conclusion? With the exception of performing a purely DPS role on the Najentus encounter, 21/0/40 is suboptimal when compared to other warlock DPS specs. Thus, like 30/21/10, it's a spec that demonstrates a warlocks lack of deeper understanding of how the class talents and game scaling work. Edit: A typo was missed during the initial proof-reading, sorry. Last edited by Furio : 10/21/07 at 6:59 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #119 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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The real benefit I see of 21/0/40 over 0/21/40 is less reliance on hots to sustain dps. If you're raid set up is such that you regularly get topped off or dropped a hot after tapping then 0/21/40 is the superior spec in 90% of fights. 0/21/40 gains more benefit from moonkin and elemental shaman buffs though then 21/0/40 for obvious reasons. I wouldn't say someone speccing 21/0/40 lacks a deeper understanding of the class or game scaling. The spec does have it's place and it's uses depending on raid make up much like 30/21/10 being a decent spec for a four 'lock raid that only uses one shadow priest. I think 21/0/40 is much less of a niche build then 30/21/10 though. Personally I plan to stick with demo for a good long time. Just playing devil's advocate here. | ||||||||||||
| #120 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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But 30/21/10 is just horrible, especially with multiple locks in the raid. The spec relies on throwing Shadow Bolts in between Corruption/Siphon, about as much as the destruction warlock. Except those bolts do less damage, and are at 8% less crit. Occasionally Nightfall procs, making you eat even more charges. The affliction warlock /spriests will not be too happy about the debuffs you're slapping on there, and the destro warlock won't be too happy to see his ISBs being eaten by weak Shadow Bolts. And all this so you have to be healed less than the destro warlock. It'll do damage. No one is saying it won't. But its total lack of synergy with other shadow people, and undeniably lower individual dps, in addition to the mediocre utility gained from Siphon Life, make it a clearly inferior choice over any of the other available builds listed in the Compendium. | ||||||||||||
| #121 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
The only way I see 30/21/10 being viable is if you have three other 'locks to run CoR, CoS, and CoE for you as well as keep ISB up. On top of that you'd need a raid that was somehow light on debuff space. So if two of those other three 'locks where affliction and you had one shadow priest it wouldn't work. The reason for this is the only way a 30/21/10 warlock can pull a substantial lead over other specs is through amplified dooms. The spec does it better then any other spec. I don't think this alone would be enough to give the spec a dps lead over a 0/21/40 spec assuming both 'locks where dropping doom rather then a utility curse.
Really though I agree with whoever said you may as well just find another shadow priest instead. For the debuff space used a second shadow priest would return way more utility then a fourth warlock, especially if that fourth warlock is running this spec. Last edited by Krathis : 10/22/07 at 12:34 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #122 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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You're looking at 2100 damage per 3 minutes over the destro version, or 12dps. In return, the spell you spam continuously does less damage. Just let it rest. It's never ever going to outdps an equally competent equally geared destro warlock. Except if you bring no healers. | ||||||||||||
| #123 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Borodin |
This is a wonderful resource and the great debate means it's still being expanded and refined. I specced my Warlock as deep Affliction (44/0/17) originally as back then I don't think it was obvious that Destruction would overtake it so soon for pure Raid DPS.
But I'm still chuckling at Arelenda's downranked Immolate as it lays to rest a wee debate we had on our guild forum long before he started this thread Sorry I've nothing constructive to add other than as a Warlock Alt Player I say "Keep up the great work". | ||||||||||||
| #124 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
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I think the point some of you are still missing is that with this spec you trade raid utility for versatility. This can certainly be a bad thing if every lock specced this way just like it would be a bad thing if every lock was FG Raid spec. However if you have other locks filling the utility role then having one of these locks or an FG raid spec lock doesnt hurt and they have potential to put out numbers. EDIT:: This was from our Hydross kill the other night. Not my best night as I had UI and Lag issues. Also no Doom was used and I think I was on CoR duty on this one (cant remember, sleeped since then) Wow Web Stats Last edited by Cronjob : 10/22/07 at 11:27 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #125 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Vlar |
As to the 30/21/10 issue:
I tried it early on (learning VR and Lurker) and while it was competitive in the DPS aspect, the lack of threat reduction is what made me respec. I was doing above average DPS for the raid, but I was gaining threat to a degree where I couldn't continue DPS until my shatter cooldown finished. As to CoR: You are missing a major aspect to CoR. Not only do you have to figure in melee DPS compared to Doom, you also need to add in the DPS increase of all classes due to the higher threat generation of the tank. If I recall correctly, Pre-BC CoR increased raid DPS by 3%. | ||||||||||||
| #126 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Graall |
The original post in this thread provides guidance for gear choice for each of the builds it reviews. For both demonolgy and destruction specs it recommends spell haste as being more valuable than either spell crit, or spell damage. This runs contrary to most of the advice and simulation/theorycrating I have read such as:
Warlock scaling simulation I've also spent some time playing around with the warlock dps spreadsheets and have not seen spell haste as being more valuable in terms of dps than simply adding more +damage. Is there a factor that I am missing that makes spell haste more valuable to these builds than is immediately obvious? | ||||||||||||
| #127 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
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Although I have to admit, 30/21/10 probably puts out the strongest Seed of Corruption | ||||||||||||
| #128 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Antoine |
At most reasonable gear levels, haste is approximately as good as spell damage as 0/21/40 (for me, .99 haste is 1 damage). It's really personal preference.
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| #129 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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It calculates the gains for +damage too, by calculation the % increase your base spells get from a bonus to spellpower. It then applies this to your totals. That's the hypothetical gain from damage. The numbers for gaining 100 haste are consistently higher for me (0/21/40) than for 100 points in any other rating (or 100 damage). for reference, I have 1220 spellpower buffed with Fel Armor. Around 150 hit and 290 crit rating. 100 more spelldamage boosts my dps with around 5%. 100 haste usually translates into 7-8%. Crit and Hit vary, since ISB varies a lot between bosses and trash. Main theory is this: all stats have diminishing returns. At the moment haste gear becomes available, warlocks are already packing 1200+ spellpower. Upping haste gets you a %based increase. You need quite a bit of spellpower to get the same % since you already have tons. The highest increases are for the first points of haste. It probably reaches saturation pretty quickly. I estimate it at 150-250 but that's just an educated guess. The problem is that this is all theory. The _real_ benefits of haste, especially given the low effective difference in casting time, are plain impossible to measure. There's no way to filter out lag. | ||||||||||||
| #130 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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As for 30/21/10 and ISB... Affliction Warlocks get a nice bonus from ISB to all their dots, without consuming charges. Hence the high synergy between destro/affliction. | ||||||||||||
| #131 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
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I'll post some TK stuff from this week, maybe Al'ar or something else in there non AOE. Again I am not saying this is the build that saves WOW, just saying its not crap and if other locks fill the other roles then this is viable as is the FG raid spec even at the higher gear levels. Vlar, You are correct the Aggro is an issue on the destruction side for this build however not so for the Affliction side, atleast not anymore so than a UA lock. | ||||||||||||
| #132 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
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The "it does ok" argument just doesn't stick for me. I could find some random talent build that "does ok" but I don't see the point in the context of raiding. I'm constantly trying to find ways to eek out another dps of my toon, so losing some firepower (let alone comparatively nerfing shadow raid damage and eating 2-3 more debuff slots) in exchange for 2 instant dots and some healing just doesn't cut the mustard. In conclusion, the argument is going like this: pro-30/21/10: "It's not the best, but that's ok" anti-30/21/10: "It's not the best, and that's not ok" So I'm signing out on this one ... :P | ||||||||||||
| #133 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | calisti |
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It is also worth noting that phase shifted imps do not receive any group buffs. If a demonology warlock is using an imp, remember to remove phase shift before the group starts buffing. Also remember to reactivate phase shift before entering combat, or AoE abilities will insta-gib your imp. If you do forget to activate phase shift, you can always turn on autocast, dismiss the imp, and resummon it to keep its buffs and have it phase shift. | ||||||||||||
| #134 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #135 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Furio |
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My theme appears to be my lack of imagination for situations when 30/21/10, 21/0/40, and other such "non-maximized" specs actually shine. While supporters of such specs may be quick to point out examples, I challenge those supporters to justify why it's "ok" to be sub-optimal most of the time just to be able to occasionally, but rarely, thriving. From my calculus, the expected value of such specs is significantly lower than that of the "conventional" specs. | ||||||||||||
| #136 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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No sane person is saying it consistently outdamages 0/21/40. It's easily proven not to be so. But one could make a case for it to be close enough dpswise, and at that point we're arguing about tastes, really. Benefits of Blood Pact/Imp LT/Shadowfury or whatever else you can fit in 0/0/40 vs max15% dps are not measurable and highly subjective. I personally prefer 0/21/40, but I wouldn't call anyone speccing differently wrong by default. I'm pretty convinced that for almost any raid community, raid dps/efficiency could be boosted more by focusing on other matters, instead of fussing over those 21 demonology points. This is my last say on the matter, as I don't see any point in discussing 30/21/10 or different warlock tastes. The Compendium lists the default specs, with some alternatives that are popular, detailing tradeoffs made. That's all it needs to, so my work is done on that part. | ||||||||||||
| #137 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
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Ah but the thing is, if 21/0/40 is so great because you get an imp but do less damage than 0/21/40, why not go 41/0/20 or a variant to get more damage as well as more utility? It's simply a mediocre spec - it will do ok, but there are better specs out there. | ||||||||||||
| #138 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cronjob |
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Any who, forget I mention it, this is just like the old Affliction vs Destro build where most folks just pick one side and fail to consider the other. So it was said its crap for DPS, then IDK posts numbers showing not so. Then I post logs which again show its not crap for DPS. I knew by posting the logs somone would use the arguement well the other locks "suck" arguement or its a movement fight so 0/21/40 doesnt get to bolt spam, or its not dot friendly or pick any excuse. I'm sure I made mistakes too if you look closely where I could improve. Its said the build lacks versatility and there aren't any fights where it will shine, yet by your own admission you say it shines in AOE fights. Either way, I'm done with this. | ||||||||||||
| #139 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Saethar |
One thing worth adding to the Compendium is that Rank 3 Curse of the Elements should be used over Rank 4, and Rank 2 Curse of Shadow over Rank 3. The new, post-60 ranks of those Curses aren't prioritized in the debuff system, while their lower level counterparts are.
Both offer the increased 10% damage to their respective schools and cost less mana as an added benefit. The spell penetration they offer doesn't affect PvE targets. EDIT: Oops, I just noticed it was mentioned to a certain extent in the first post. | ||||||||||||
| #140 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
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| #141 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Furio |
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To Arelenda: Thanks for the time and effort compiling this thread. I realize part of the spec debates come to down to "personal taste" in so far as willingness to min/max for a specific role. Further commentary on the topic is likely fruitless. Perhaps, though, it would be useful to more clearly denote the raid relevant differences between the default specs and the listed alternatives. For example: "The Siphon Life spec drops Demonic Sacrifice for Improved Life Tap and Siphon Life, making you more self reliant. Key talents are the standard destro ones (SnF, Ruin, +8% crit) and Siphon Life. Not as high dps output as the default build, but does require less heals and Life Taps and provides Blood Pact." ...becomes: "The Siphon Life spec drops Demonic Sacrifice for Improved Life Tap and Siphon Life, making you more self reliant. Key talents are the standard destro ones (SnF, Ruin, +8% crit) and Siphon Life. As much as 15% less DPS than default build. Loses 15% shadow damage, 30 spell damage, 6% healing received, 18% Stamina, 3% Intellect, and Demonic Sacrifice. Gains unimproved Blood Pact (minimizes net stamina change), Improved Life Tap, Instant Corruption, Siphon Life, and -10% Affliction Threat." | ||||||||||||
| #142 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | PSGarak |
"Versatility" doesn't mean much in the context of a pure dps class. From a raid perspective, damage by DOTs or damage by nukes is just damage. Yes, 30/21/10 has greater "versatility," but I don't see what good that is. Just like the threat value of CoR doesn't matter if your tank's threat is already top-notch, the self-reliance of 30/21/10 doesn't matter if your healers have mana to spare. And the odd thing is, either you or they will have more mana to spare with 21/40 or 40/21, depending on who has the happy shadow priest, so it can easily end up being a wash anyways.
Perhaps we can name 30/21/10 "Seed Spec"? =P As far as 21/0/40... yeees, the difference is capped at 15%... 15% is fucking huge. If one of my dpsers was underperforming by 15% they'd get a swift kick in the ass and told to stop falling asleep or let their younger brother play their account. While the real difference is going to be smaller, it's not going to be by much. Siphon Life is a piddling little spell for damage and the talents between 7 and 21 affliction don't really do much but set up talents further down the tree. My suggestion would be to stop at 7 in affliction flesh out a few talents in destro, and get some toys in demo instead. Something like this. Just as 'viable' for raiding but more fun and flexible outside. | ||||||||||||
| #143 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
Some of the Hyjal trash (the felhunters) and a +all resistance aura, Supremus has very high fire resist, and Illidari council can cast a 250 to all resist buff.
Certainly those are limited, but worth noting. If you don't have debuff slot issues, you should pay the extra 100 mana just in case. | ||||||||||||
| #144 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
![]() I noticed a major difference in debuffs in both raids. Here's the details on Hydross from Cronjob's WWS on Fate's Hand Hydross Kill: Hydross the Unstable - WWS -- recorded by a Hunter And here's details on Hydross from a Hydross kill from my own raiding guild, TFR: Hydross the Unstable - WWS -- recorded by an enhancement Shaman Note the huge difference in debuffs. One Thunder Clap. One CoR (which lasts 2 minutes). ONE application of Shadow Vulnerability. Can anyone with more experience than me with WWS explain the existence of this discrepance? At first I figured it was because debuffs were being reapplied before they ran out (and therefore not shown in the combat log), but Hydross seems to get debuffed by Mind Flay 11 times, despite a Shadow Priest in FH doing 100% of his damage on Hydross, almost half of it through Mind Flay. The only plausible explanation I can come up with, is that the FH log is recorded by a Hunter, and the TFR one by a melee person. Apparently range has a huge impact on debuff logging by WWS. Can anyone confirm this? Last edited by Arelenda : 10/23/07 at 12:18 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #145 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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In addition, sometimes WWS does not pickup debuffs for some reason. | ||||||||||||
| #146 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
haha.. I like this. If I'm ever feeling rich I may roll into AV after 2.3 with this spec and drop nothing but seeds.
Back on topic, discovered something pretty important concerning ISB uptime today. The debuff is counted when the spell leaves your hands. So if three warlocks have bolts in the air on a mob with one charge left all three will receive the benefits of the debuff even if none of those shadow bolts crit. Granted the way I tested it was on Dr. Boom by putting ISB up and then starting my cast with three seconds left on the debuff. So while it's possible that the debuff works differently when it's the charges that make it fall off rather then it expiring I find it more likely that the code uses one standard. Curses work the same way, if you cast shadow bolt and then drop curse of shadows before your shadow bolt lands you will not receive the added damage from the curse and the opposite is true if you have curse of shadows up, cast a shadow bolt, and then drop a curse of weakness to overwrite your curse of shadows, the shadow bolt will receive the benefit of the first curse. So any build with a 36 yard range on shadow bolts will affectively get more use out of ISB then any build that does not because of the longer in flight time of their shadow bolts. | ||||||||||||
| #147 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #148 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Furio |
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This is exactly correct. If you see more than one Misery, CoR, COS, etc, it means that the debuff fell off and was reapplied. | ||||||||||||
| #149 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Pentamorfi |
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| #150 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Darkmantle |
It's the same case with frost nova on a target then icelance at the same time even if one breaks the frost nova they both get the 50% more crit because their damage and crit chance is decided when they leave your hands not when they hit the target. This is probably done for computational reasons.
This is my speculation about how the servers handle spells and is in no way fact. It is easier if the server knows a 3k shadowbolt is traveling towards the target with 35% crit rate all it has to do is workout whether it hits/crits/resists on the target(that the fate of the spell is not determined when you cast it can be clearly seen by rogues vanishing deathcoils and the like). The alternative of calculating damage when the target is hit would require the server to lookup the casters spell damage and buffs which could lead to a delay in the damage actually being done. Previously dots had their damage calculated moment to moment from the caster so you could put dots up pop a damage trinket and the dots would start hitting harder along with your sexy shadowbolts. Now the base damage is calculated from your +dmg at casting and each tick checks for debuffs on the mob. Coa used to be even weirder because it would be cast from the warlock, so if the warlock died or went out of range then coa would stop doing damage. Edit: I tried hitting icon after I had completed a shadowbolt but before it reached the mob and it didn't seem like the shadowbolt got the damage bonus. Last edited by Darkmantle : 10/23/07 at 10:06 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #151 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
While on the subject of specs, I thought I would throw in the following hypothetical situation to see if any mathematically inclined members of the community would be interested in simulating it:
What if a 0/21/40 Destruction nuke build Warlock had both [Ashtongue Talisman of Shadows] and the 4-piece Tier 5 bonus [Hood of the Corruptor]. Would the Warlock notice a DPS boost by speccing 1/21/39 (A point out of SnF, and into Imp. Corruption) and incorporating Corruption into their 'rotation'? | ||||||||||||
| #152 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
To summarize:
for nukes: (Shadow Bolt, Soul Fire, etc) Spellpower is "locked in" at START of the cast. Multipliers are "locked in" at the COMPLETION of cast. If it's a projectile, it'll start traveling at that point. for dots and channeled spells: (Drain Life, Corruption, UA, etc) Spellpower is "locked" in at START of cast. Multiplier is recalculated at every tic. I'm assuming crit bonuses (frost mages vs frozen targets) are also "locked in" at completion of cast, but am unable to test this. (this information is WRONG, see below) Last edited by Arelenda : 10/24/07 at 5:42 AM. Reason: updated | ||||||||||||
| #153 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Assuming you get your corruption to tic every 3s, it'll proc every 15s on average. That means it's up 1/3 of the time, roughly, so gives you 220/3=76 spellpower on average. That's about equal to the [Icon of the Silver Crescent], which has 43+155/6=70spellpower on average. So it's not a great upgrade. Math for 1/21/39 vs 0/21/40: Assuming 1300 spell power, 25% crit chance You're losing 4% of your spellpower on each bolt, which is 2,67% less damage per bolt. (1300*1,06+575 vs 1300*1,02+575 or 1950 vs 1900) You'll be casting roughly one corruption per 6 shadow bolts. Corruption is 2334 damage (900+1300*0,94 plus 10% set bonus) The original rotation would get 6.6 shadow bolts off. In theory a bit more damage, but there are a few factors: lower range on corruption, no threat reduction, two additional debuff slots (assuming the T6 set bonus leaves a debuff), and no ISB. I'd say debatable. | ||||||||||||
| #154 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
I imagined it would be a close call, yeah. I think I'll give it a shot and compare WWS's once I obtain the exalted BT trinket, while I do not anticipate earthshattering DPS gains, I am still curious about how it would pan out.
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| #155 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Byram |
After all the discussion I've read about how armor does not have diminishing returns in terms of the character's lifespan (though the % reduction does), I'm curious as to how CoR doesn't work in the opposite way (i.e.- each point of armor reduction has an equal effect to shortening the mob's lifespan, though, as has been calculated, the %reduction in armor is reduced with diminishing returns)?
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| #156 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
Something to note is the four piece tier five bonus is calculated before spell damage. On average it produced a gain of about six damage per tic per shadow bolt applied. Assuming a fully debuffed mob you may push that number as high as 9 or 10 or roughly a 3 dps gain on the last five tics of corruption. Granted it does keep stacking but still the numbers are less then impressive.
Assuming a non-optimal casting rotation of one shadow bolt applied every three seconds (due to lag, movement, or whatever... but mostly just because I don't feel up to breaking down anything more complicated at the moment) here's some numbers. second tic +10 damage third tic +20 damage fourth tic +30 damage fifth tic +40 damage sixth tic +50 damage 150 extra damage over eighteen seconds or about eight more dps then without the set bonus. Even if we double that number to 16 to account for DS and ISB (and to give the option some leniency in it's favor) it doesn't make up for the 20 dps loss the 0/21/40 warlock has in Arlenda's example from moving that point out of S & F. Keep in mind too that Arlenda's numbers are calculated assuming no other debuffs on the mob, 1300 spell power 0/21/40 warlocks see closer to 3k point shadow bolts on average in a raid environment. Unless your dps would go up by moving one point into corruption to begin with (which is very possible for 0/21/40 'locks with lower crit ratings) I wouldn't spec just for the tier five bonus. The set bonus does not add a debuff but rather amps up the damage of your corruption (when you attempt to reapply a corruption before your amped one falls off you'll get a message much like with amplified curse of agony, 'a more powerful spell is already active'.) Last edited by Krathis : 10/23/07 at 12:41 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #157 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
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Seconds of buff time per tick of corruption = (0.2*0.8*5+0.2*0.2*3) So uptime = (0.2*0.8*5+0.2*0.2*3)/3 = 30.67% This brings average spellpower to 67.47 which drops it lower than the Icon for single targets. As pointed out in other threads, the benefit goes up if you're corrupting multiple targets. | ||||||||||||
| #158 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Vlar |
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| #159 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
I never said it shouldn't be included, I think it should as it's definitely another component of CoR usage. I was just noting the exceptions to considering it a flat "raid dps" increase.
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| #160 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #161 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
You misspelled Sacrifice.
To the 1/21/39 people that are using 4 Tier 5 and Ashtongue trinket, it is better dps on paper, but then you have more aggro, less range, and are more affected by spell pushback on Corruption, plus you will use more mana (370 mana in 2 seconds vs 399 mana in 2.5 seconds or 185 mana per second vs 159.6 mana per second), and imp SB will up less. Not worth it unless you really want to use the Ashtongue trinket. | ||||||||||||
| #162 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
In the stat section, I would include intellect as it converts directly to critical strike chance. I think a lot of locks are so stat-averse we forget that. With kings (and gnome racial) this can add a decent amount of weight to some items.
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| #163 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Soul |
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A good way to demonstrate this for nukes is to go to Dr. Boom and dump Searing Pain on him using the Icon of the Silver Crescent. How many spells benefit from the increased damage after the buff fades? It will almost always be zero (lag being a factor here). If spellpower locked in at the start of cast, then you would almost always get one cast benefiting from Spell Power after the buff fades (you start casting Searing Pain. Spell Power fades from you. Your Searing Pain hits Dr. Boom for xxx damage). The only thing locked in at start of cast is spell haste modifiers... that's why putting a Curse of Tongues on someone midcast has no effect on when that spell finishes. | ||||||||||||
| #164 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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UPDATE: Turns out I was, in fact, wrong. Thanks for correcting me. Testing proves: for nukes: (Shadow Bolt, Soul Fire, etc) Spellpower AND Multiplier are measured at the COMPLETION of cast. If it's a projectile, it'll start traveling at that point. for dots (Corruption, UA, etc) Spellpower "locked in" at completion of cast. Multiplier reevaluated per tic for channeled spells: (Drain Life, Hellfire) Spellpower is "locked" at START of cast. Multiplier is recalculated at every tic. I'm assuming crit bonuses (frost mages vs frozen targets) are also "locked in" at completion of cast, but am unable to test this. I'll need to update ShadowSeer. Last edited by Arelenda : 11/21/07 at 7:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #165 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
ShadowSeer updated to reflect this. It won't affect data much, though.
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| #166 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | tdurden |
I was wondering if a felguard raiding warlock could post not only which fights work well with the spec (as it's been done before), but also some info/guideline of which boss abilities a felguard could be targeted with, and which ones wont target it.
For example, will mark of kaz'rogal affect the felguard? I've never raided with * 41 * but it seems to me that it might be quite hard to optimize it. Basing this on hunter pets, i reckon that they can't be targeted with Azgalor doom, Teron doom, Mother fatal attraction etc, so are we looking at a "specific target" immunity for the felguard, opposed to getting all kinds of aoe effects (like mark of kaz'rogal)? | ||||||||||||
| #167 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Jaeydn |
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For Kaz'rogal my pet seemed to be affected with the mark like other mana users, but mana feed negated that easily enough. Same for RoS, he goes oom as well, but either he was avoiding the damage from the 2nd Essence, or was completely unaffected by it. For the 3rd Essence he was taking some damage from the aura, but he resisted quited a bit since I think raid buffed and with Void Star Talisman he was at 200ish resists, and stayed alive for the fights duration. For Archimonde the FG can will still be hit by any aoe and can be cursed as well. On Teron he can not be doomed, and still takes damage from random aoe. Mother, he can't not be fatally attracted. But so far, any fight that is basically melee friendly the FG is amazing. Aside from the bosses that I listed he was very easy to keep alive and I didn't have to worry about him much, but on the others I was better off using an imp or saccing something as I would have to resummon the pet several times and it wasn't worth it to have him out. Hope that helps some. | ||||||||||||
| #168 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | tdurden |
I admit that im quite bad at understanding other people's roles in raid environment, so this might be inaccurate.
Judging by your post and my experience as affliction lock only i'd reckon that: - Najentus: can't be used. Apparently the damage is so much that even 2p t5 can't make it. - Supremus: as i said i fail at understanding it here, might be good - Akama: surely amazing - Teron: surely amazing - Bloodboil: i reckon hearing something about fel acid that melee needed to pay attention to, but all in all i reckon it works well here too (i suppose that it cant be the target of fel rage yeah?) - Ros: can it be fixated? phase 2 might work well but i might need a fel puppy. p3 should be good. - Mother: should be quite good here, unless the shadow rez gear nerfs it to ridiculous. Might despawn if you get ported and need to run too far from it? - Illidari: what is the problem here that jaeydn reported i'm not so sure - Illidan: p1 should be good (can't get parasytes right?). p2 is definitely harder to manage. p3 is as p1 but the flames, which i reckon it won't be able to get. p4 shows my lack of knowledge in this, having used just an imp in the past year. is the felguard threat separate or added to the warlock? actually he can't melee him, but i'd like to know how pet threat works anyway - Winterchill: i guess that it works alright here - Anatheron: same as before - Kaz'rogal: not so sure, i guess that with void star talisman etc he will resist quite some marks, but with 1 point in feed im not so sure it's easy to not let it go oom without extra lifetaps (lowering ur dps) - Azgalor: supposedly quite good in here too. Extra avoidance against rain of fire is nice. - Archimonde: how does air burst work with it? Can it be directly targeted by it? Will it go in the air if someone in range is air bursted? If so, when it will die from the landing no soul charge will be placed on archimonde right? What about the aoe fear+doomfires? Avoidance works giving it a chance to resist the fear or not (i guess not)? Thanks for the answers, might be good for a lock approaching the demo way. | ||||||||||||
| #169 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Jaeydn |
Najentus, surprisingly I didn't have any trouble keeping the pet up. Usually he would catch a chain heal right after Tidal Shield, or avoid the burst completely.
On Council, I dps on Gathios the Shatterer, and while the pet would sometimes eat a consecrate tick, the combination that plus either blizzard or flamestrike hitting me or the pet would prove to be too much damage and he would die. I mentioned before that my computer is kind of bad so I deal with bad FPS and an internet connection that freezes up every few moments so my reaction time is sometimes too slow to move the pet out of harm. So you might have better luck on that boss than I did, also what you do in the fight might be different. Mother, I did get ported but both times it wasn't really far so I didn't have an incident of the pet despawning, nor when I got tossed in the air. *I was extremely surprised at my performance on this fight, since normally me and the other affliction lock in the raid place low on top 10/11 for damage. The added resists from the pet allowed me to use a regular dps piece instead of SR, and I resisted a ton of damage overall. Particularly the mana drains, and ended up placing #1. Supremus, I didn't get to see the FG in action long enough since I died early, but it does well enough just have to manuver it around fires. Archimonde, he can't be air bursted that I saw, but the fires chewed him up really fast, same with Azgalor. I'd try to move him as soon as I saw the Rain of Fire over the melee but I could barely pull him back to me in time. Illidan, phase one with him is still basically tank and spank and I don't really have to worry too much about him. Phase two, I keep him next to me unless I see a good opening for him to dps an elemental. Phase three I move him in and out to to dps the boss when he is no danger of being in a fire (I didn't risk sending him in at all on the warlock tank part). Some of the fights that I wasn't able to successfully keep my pet alive I'll try again next week without using soul link. That would have probably helped a lot since I would tend to take damage after my pet had and vice versa. Then I can weigh wether or not it's worth it keep the non soul linked FG out, or just sac a succy/fg or keep out an imp (dps wise). I'm still pretty new to this myself, as you said, I've been raiding with either a passive pet or a sacced one for the better part of 2 years. One 2.3 goes live some aspects of raiding demo will be even easier with pets automatically moving to get behind a boss, it was really nice when I had him on PTR when we did ZA. Last edited by Jaeydn : 10/26/07 at 9:31 AM. Reason: Adding more info. | ||||||||||||
| #170 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | tdurden |
The 2.3 change surely makes it even better yeah. I guess i'll try it a bit on the ptr too, my main fear is that micromanaging it well < the dps loss.
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| #171 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Jaeydn |
Overall unless it's one of the pet unfriendly fights you rarely have to worry at the FG. Turn on auto cleave and let him run wild. 2pc T5 takes care of him nicely(which I hope they add something like that set bonus to the demo tree) cause I really don't like being chained to those items to retain a spec, but as I am really liking the build I guess I have no choice. =)
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| #172 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
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For Archimonde, I think it would be best to sac a Succy or run with phased imp (not sure if you would soul link the imp), doomfires are killer. In addition, if your pet is hitting Arch and you get Air bursted, you need to do a /petfollow so he doesn't despawn. For General Demo pet info, make sure he gets buffed especially the imp (just unphase him and then rephase, it helps that the imp gets the buffs you get). | ||||||||||||
| #173 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Cohren |
What's everyone's thoughts on ForteWarlock? I like it a lot better for DoT timers than DoTimer(Use of /stopcasting macros don't mess up the bars). The other features are quite helpful imo, though I only use the Shard tracker, SS tracker and summoning assistant. I also like the macro for using Ritual of Souls, it will say which healthstone your summoning(2080,2200 etc..). Adds a lot of functionality to Warlocks without jamming your macro page full of things. All of my guilds warlocks now use this mod.
One of the major functions is that regardless of who applies Imp SB to the target, you get the DoT timer with the charges remaining. If a lot of other people agree maybe it should be added to the addon's section. | ||||||||||||
| #174 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Melkor |
I agree about ForteWarlock, the summoning assistant alone is worth the download. I haven't had any experience with the timers though, at present im still using DoTimer to handle that. Though I may have another look at that since you've found it as useful, especially the ISB debuff tracking.
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| #175 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Gumibear |
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| #176 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | jayowen |
I found for Najentus that after turning off Soul Link the Felguard stayed up fine.
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| #177 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | jayowen |
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| #178 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Jaeydn |
Now this is going to sound like a horribly noobish question, but as I have not been a soul link build since like over a year until now, I have no clue how to turn it off lol. I used to be able to click it off myself like any other buff, but now I've been saccing the pet and resummoning it to not have one soul linked.
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| #179 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Auranaras |
Unfortunately that is the only way.
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| #180 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | zarikdon |
As a follow-up to the earlier discussion regarding the 4pc T5 bonus, has Blizzard commented at all whether it's a bug that it only affects base corruption damage right now, and not damage post +spell damage? I recently purchased the T5 helm for the 4pc bonus thinking that it would be a 50-ish DPS upgrade, but now it seems that the gloves off Attumen + Spellstrike Hood/Cowl of the Grand Engineer would be the better choice for a 0/21/40 build.
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| #181 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | • frmorrison |
4 T5 bonus isn't so great, and that is intended.
For destro, the bonus is mostly useless, and about a 20-30 dps increase for Affliction. | ||||||||||||
| #182 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | semi |
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I'm in a similar situation but keeping t4 helm+shoulders because with the set piece it seems at least equal to most gear upgrades I have available, but maybe I'm just lying to myself so I don't have to spend hundreds of gold on primals or ore for the engineering/tailoring helms. | ||||||||||||
| #183 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
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In all seriousness though, I have no idea what your gear is like as I don't have a link to your Armory, but the Spellstrike set have served me well so far. I have the T5 pieces, I just find Spellstrike to be superior (Especially the helm) to T5, especially since I need it to cap hit without resorting to re-geming. | ||||||||||||
| #184 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | zarikdon |
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The base gain for a corruption tick is 15 (900 base damage, 6 ticks, 10%), and to get the most out of the bonus you assume that all 5 ticks are affected by the buff from shadow bolt. (1.5*(1+1.1+...+1.1^4))(1.1) = 91.6 damage over 18 seconds, which is roughly 5 DPS. A 0/21/40 build would gain more due to the succubus sacrifice adding a 1.15 multiplier instead of 1.1 from shadow mastery as well as the fact that a 2 second cast time on corruption allows all 6 ticks to benefit from the set bonus, though of course you could argue that you wouldn't be trying to use the T5 bonus in that situation anyway, since an untalented corruption isn't good in your spell cycle. Yet even for that build, the DPS increase is at best 7 or so. I just don't see how you could possibly squeeze out anything close to 20 DPS from 4pc T5 using any build. | ||||||||||||
| #185 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #186 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Napoleond |
Quick question, does Demonic Sac apply to your base Spell damage or to your Actual damage of the spell.
I.e. You have 1100 shadow damage, multiply that by 15% and thats what sac does. OR: Your shadowbolt hits for 3500, Multiply that by 15%. My reason for this is that Shadow and Flame's tooltip is different then Demonic sac's, and was wondering if it was different. | ||||||||||||
| #187 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | zelman |
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| #188 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Yes shadow and flame is spcifically a coefficient change, meaning your spells get more out of spell damage. Instead of getting 3/3.5, you get 3/3.5+0.2. Demonic sac and other talents with such a description simply add a % to your final shadowbolt. How it stacks with other things that add +% damage is a different story though (I think it's talents and buffs add up, then the result is multiplied by the sum of debuffs on the target, aka base*(1+talent%+buff%)*(1+debuff%), but I'm very unsure about that).
Overall shadow and flame is like an increase in your spell damage, although in reality it's as effective as having (0.2+3/3.5)/(3/3.5)=1.2333 multiplier to your spell damage or 23.33% more spell damage when it comes to shadowbolt. then that spell damage adds up to the base shadowbolt damage (naked untalented shadowbolt) and then the result gets multiplied by all the multipliers. | ||||||||||||
| #189 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
How single target spells work:
Total damage = Base Damage + Spellpower * Spell Coefficient Coefficient is generally casting time / 3.5. - Coefficient is halved if it has a bonus effect like a life drain (death coil / siphon life / drain soul). - Snares tend to have 95% of the original coefficient (frost bolt) - Any spell below 1.5s casting time counts as 1.5. (Shadowburn, Death Coil) - Dot coefficients are dot length / 15 instead, with damage divided equally per tic. Corruption, CoA and CoD are exceptions (0.94, 1.2 and 2, respectively, with emp corruption adding 0.12 per talent point) - Cast time reducing talents don't count, it's original casting time. Frostbolt/Fireball are exceptions. But they're standard in 2.3. Example: Shadow Bolt. Base damage: 541-603 (according to wowwiki). For some reason my Base Shadow Bolt is listed in wow as 544-607, if anyone can enlighten me why, that'd be appreciated. Coefficient: 3 / 3.5 (SB cast time is originally 3) So a bolt would on average hit for: 572 + Spellpower * 0.86 Shadow and Flame adds to the Coefficient, so if you have it it's 572 + Spellpower * (0.86 + 0.2) Generally, everything that adds to ALL Shadow damage (ISB, CoS, Misery, Shadow Weaving, Demonic Sacrifice) adds to the TOTAL damage, and all modifiers are indepently multiplied. Example: Corruption tics for 500. Add ISB: 500 * 1,2 Add CoS: 500 * 1,2 * 1,1 Add Misery: 500 * 1,2 * 1,1 * 1,05 Add Demonic Sacrifice: 500 * 1,2 * 1,1 * 1,05 * 1,15 Add Shadow Weaving: 500 * 1,2 * 1,1 * 1,05 * 1,15 * 1,1 Notable exceptions to the "boost total damage": - Amplify curse will only boost base damage - T5 4p set bonus boost dots weirdly (it modifies the base damage of the dot, and stacks). - Shadow Mastery doesn't boost CoD. (updated to correct mistakes) Warlock Aoe: Rain of Fire: 8/7 of spellpower to total, divided per tic Hellfire: 15/7 of spellpower to total, divided per tic SoC Dot: 3/2 of spellpower (but blows up at fixed amount, which is not affected by power) SoC Detonation: 1/6 of spellpower Rain of Fire and Hellfire seem consistent since their contribution per second is 1/7. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/28/07 at 6:44 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #190 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Secondary effects afaik are 95% coefficient, however spells like life drain don't fall in this category - they fall in the category of "spells that also heal you" and therefore receieve 1/2 the bonus.
Also I think spells that are faster than 1.5s also count as 1.5s, not just instants (example paladin's hammer of wrath). As for debuffs I'd verify first if they actually multiply like that rather than add up. It would actually make more sense if a targte with ISB, misery, shadow weaving and 13% CoS would have 20+5+10+13=48% increased damage or 1.48X, not 1.2*1.05*1.1*1.13=1.57X. Shouldn't be too hard to test on Dr. Boom with a couple friends though. | ||||||||||||
| #191 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Bobkelso |
speaking of Felguard DPS...
Wow Web Stats - 1914 DPS It's really beneficial on Tidewalker, because while you are busy AOEing, he's hacking away at the boss still without having to "renew" him like a DoT. I use Felguard spec for pretty much everything in SSC/TK now, and I'm never really beaten on the damage meters. (except fights where I have to do something specifically that lowers my DPS) | ||||||||||||
| #192 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #193 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Soul |
CoD and Drain Soul have half the gain from spellpower that you would expect (CoD only gets a 200% bonus from damage, Drain Soul gets 7.5/3.5 instead of 15/3.5).
Drain Mana (along with mana burn) is completely unaffected by spellpower. Finally, AoEs don't seem to exhibit any consistent behaviour with Spellpower. Here are the coefficients I've seen: RoF: 8/7 Hellfire: 10/7 Blizzard: 8/7 Hurricane: 9/7 Arcane Explosion 1.5/7 Cone of Cold, BW, DB: 1.5/7 * 0.9 FN: Less than 5%. Flamestrike DoT: 8/45 Flamestrike DD: 3/10.5 Consecration: 8/10.5 Obviously , there are no longer any standard rules for AoE coefficients. Total damage is generally capped at 10 times the average damage per AoE excluding crits, with the exception of the Flamestrike DoT, so at a certain number of mobs, the spell coefficient becomes moot except that you cap out sooner. | ||||||||||||
| #194 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
You're saying the "10 target cap" isn't based on the actual damage per 1 target but rather the "naked" damage against 1 target? Unless you tested it out I find it very wierd, although I didn't test anything about it myself.
Anyway the AOE spells do *seem* to follow certain rules, it's just that each spell has different attributes that make it follow different rules. For example (assuming your coefficients are corret): RoF/blizzard - 1/3.5 per second like all spells, 1/2 for being AOE, and then X8 for being over 8 seconds. IAE - like a 1.5s cast spell but 1/2 because it's aoe And I suppose you could explain at least some of the rest if you only knew what factors apply there, although it is definitely possible some have an "irregular" coefficient (like CoD or drain soul have). Anyway I remember reading somewhere AOE was 1/3 and not 1/2, but oh well... | ||||||||||||
| #195 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | tornblack |
Does anyone have a model they like for calculating improved shadowbolt uptime that they like? I'm aware of shadowseer for measuring what is going on in the current raid, but i'm more interested in a theoretical model for comparing various raid makeups.
For example, consider a tank and spank encounter w/ 3 shadowpriests and 2 warlocks, what is the impact on overall dps for: 2 0/21/40 locks spamming shadowbolt nonstop vs 1 0/21/40 lock sbolt spamming and one 42/0/17 + 2 refreshing dots and spamming shadow bolt in between. Obviously I could just measure the same fight over and over again with both makeups using wws and shadowseer, but duplicating otherwise identical raid conditions over and over again is nigh impossible. | ||||||||||||
| #196 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Katinsha |
Affliction and gear choices
*is proud of the fellow Argent Dawnian warlock*
Minor thingies: It is Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements. Also, being an Affliction warlock myself, I find the bit about hit rating in the corresponding section maybe a bit too short. You could perhaps extend it a bit with discussing when to choose hit and when straight damage? Also please discuss the alternatives for Suppression, once you have more high-end gear, but still want to be Affliction. Popular idea here is that you are Affliction until you get better gear from Tier 6 instances. As if it is a spec you can and will "outgrow". This is not true for some players (myself included), since the utility and self-sufficiency of Affliction retain their strength even when you personally do not scale as well as other specs with the abundant hit/crit/haste gear. Personal DPS and higher ISB contribution are not always decisive factors in some people's choices. It can be that you just find it more FUN to not spam one spell all the time. Or they want to be able to DPS multiple targets efficiently. It can also just be the fact every raid with a lot of shadow/arcane casters loves one Affliction lock for Malediction. Players that like the spec and wish to keep it even when raiding tier 6 instances might want to know how the different stats should be valued with their spec in mind even if it is not optimal (it is often "nuke gear") but still (perhaps) the best they can get. The way you put it (hit>spell dam>rest) is as I said, in my opinion, too short and might give the wrong idea to Affliction locks planning their gear progression. Nevertheless, great effort and kudo's. And that mod is awesome, although I won't use it personally since the info it gives will probably be: get more spell damage! D'oh! *grins* | ||||||||||||
| #197 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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ShadowSeer measures and does educated guesses, it's nowhere near reliable for data extensive data mining. For example: Spells cast on a mob when ISB is up will hit for 20% more damage, regardless of what happens during flight time. ShadowSeer does not model this, for example. It only counts until the debuff is removed, it doesn't take into account what spells are flying at that point. | ||||||||||||
| #198 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Also remember that the only spec that doesn't lose DPS by giving an imp to the MT is an affliction spec...
Regarding hit for affliction: By putting some reasonable stats in lieuler's spreadsheet it gives me that 1 hit rating is almost as good as 1 spell damage, while we know on itemization 4-5 damage = 4 hit rating, which makes hit rating actually not all that great. Considering this is a best case scenario for hit rating (minimum hit rating to cap DoT hit and 100% of DPS time being on a "boss"), hit rating for affliction actually results in *less* of a DPS increase per use of itemization point than spell damage, and thus would socket all red sockets with 9 damage gems, and only put 5 damage 4 hit gems in yellow sockets on items with a any useful socket bonus (crit is still inferior to both). Remember that if you have higher than minimum hit for affliction spells and/or don't DPS bosses 100% of the time (taking bosses with adds into account), hit gets even worse for affliction. Regarding suppression, the gains from dropping points there are extremely minimal, as to reach nightfall and emp corruption you need 15 in the lower tier talents, 5 of which going into corruption, 2 in lifetap, but the other 8 can only go in suppression, amplify curse, soul siphon, fel concetration, imp CoA, imp CoW or Improved drain soul. Since the only talents of those that increase DPS (amp curse, suppression and soul siphon) can already be taken with those 8 points, I don't see a reason to get any hit beyond the minimum 6% if you can help it, as your DPS would not increase through talent changes. To put any extra points in demonology you will have to take points out of destruction or higher-tier affliction talents, which doesn't change when you aquire more hit gear. | ||||||||||||
| #199 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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The example builds are guidelines, to be used as illustration, really. I've tried to highlight the key talents, and left the non-vital choices out. One reason for that was to avoid debate about whether unimportant skill A was better than unimportant skill B. But also because plenty of warlock builds are viable and require a lot of wiggle room. ![]()
But the scope of the compendium is to detail builds that work best. Playstyle is mentioned, but is not considered vital. ![]()
Last edited by Arelenda : 10/28/07 at 12:24 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #200 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Soul |
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| #201 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | PSGarak |
At 2.0 it was a horribly inconsistent mess, but 2.2 seems to have gone through and fixed a lot of the AoEs that got left behind. There might be a consistent rule now, and 50% penalty + 10-cap sounds like it is true for standard AoEs with no secondary effects. Consecration and Hellfire seem to have been hit with a 1/3 penalty rather than 1/2... and they're both PBAoE DoTs? I dunno. How recent are all those coefficient data?
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| #202 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
The aoe coefficients listed in my post were double checked today. After some testing with multiple gear sets, I was at most 2 points off.
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| #203 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Soul |
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Just rechecked Hellfire again with my level 65 warlock. Maybe the rules change at level 68, but at 65, there's no way that Hellfire gets a 15/7 multiplier. With 484 bonus damage, I was getting ticks of 261. The tooltip says 215. A difference of 46 per tick, so spellpower adds 46 * 15 = 690 damage to the spell. Multiplier is thus ~690/484 = 1.42. Multiply that by 7 and you get 10 (well, 9.98), not 15. | ||||||||||||
| #204 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | semi |
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Yeah..after looking at the gear a little more I think you're right, although its still hard to say [Spellstrike Helm] vs [Destruction Holo-gogs] I'm guessing spellstrike would be better if i went for the legs as well (instead of the trial fire trousers with 3 +9s), but thats a huge investment in mats for gear that presumably should get replaced anyways. Also destruction hologogs means meta gem which would mean I could try out that new crit meta. | ||||||||||||
| #205 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krazen |
What is a good baseline DPS for warlocks looking to join a tier 5 guild?
I just went on my first raid on my character. As I've posted on another thread, I'm looking to get back into raiding, and the general consensus there seems to be to skip the Karazhan stage. I don't have tailored epics or anything quite yet, so this is still a work in progress, but I managed 630 dps on my first Maulgar kill. I'll try to update this post with a WWS, but I think I botched the combatlog feature, so that will have to wait. The World of Warcraft Armory Here is my armory, its obviously a work in progress. One thing I did have trouble with is maintaining dot rotations on 2 mobs. On a single target I will curse of shadows, and I'll try to place curse of doom on the 2nd mob, and maybe siphon. But I found that if I try to maintain UA/Corr/Immo on the 2nd mob, I lose some uptime on the first. | ||||||||||||
| #206 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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According to wowwiki base damage is 208, not 216. So that suggest you have 4 points in it. Or wowwiki is outdated. Either way, our data is inconsistent. I'll do some research into this. My tooltip info has been off, as well. I'm not sure what's causing that. Update: Wowwiki's data is correct. 208 is the base damage (check by walking to IF with a level 1 Warlock) Update: Shadow Bolt base damage is 541-603. My tooltip says 543-607. I removed all my gear, and have a screenshot of me hitting Boom (no buffs, no gear) for 605. I have no clue why this is. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/29/07 at 1:16 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #207 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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As for rotations, on trash I'd start with UA on the main target then spam Agony and Corruption on tanked targets. On boss fights with adds where you can dot freely, just use all your dots on all suitable targets. As long as a dot runs its full duration (not pushed off, target won't die, you don't refresh it too soon) they are highest damage-per-casting-time (dpcs) for an affliction warlock. Refresh the best ones first when they run out, use remaining time to apply the inferior dots, and if everything is dotted nicely, use Shadow Bolts. Of course, if success hinges on one target dying really fast, you might want to just dot+SB a single one. But in general, the strategy above will result in highest dps. ShadowSeer will tell you whether you're losing tics on any dot, and how much dpcs each one is, if you're not clear on that front. | ||||||||||||
| #208 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
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All in all I found investing into Spellstrike well worth while. | ||||||||||||
| #209 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Soul |
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As for the discrepancy, I bet it's a bug. Do a test on your 70 warlock with Rank 3 Hellfire and find out what the coefficient is (it should still get the full coefficient). I bet you our results will match then and we'll have a bug report to submit to Blizzard... | ||||||||||||
| #210 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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My Corruption was learned at 65. Yet it still has 900 base damage, which is the amount it does when first learned. Hellfire was learned at 68, base damage 306. Mine is listed as 312-313 which is exactly what it should be if you calculate my one point in Emberstorm. However, rank 3 of Hellfire and my Shadowbolts are off. It's definitely not the case for ALL spells, but it looks like Shadow Bolt did get an increase. Can anyone enlighten me? ![]()
I'm 70. I have one point in emberstorm (2% bonus damage) with 982 firepower: Hellfire rank 4 - 457 damage per tic Hellfire rank 3 - 362.5 damage per tic with 467 firepower Hellfire rank 4 - 382 damage per tic Hellfire rank 3 - 287 damage per tic On the tooltips: Rank 4: 313-314 dps (learned at 68: base 306) Rank 3: 219-220 dps (learned at 54: base 208) -- analysis for rank 4 at 70 for me: damage per tic = 457 damage per tic without spellpower = 313.5 (between 313 and 314) damage per tic without emberstorm = 457/1.02 = 448.04 damage per tic without emberstorm without spellpower = 313.5 / 1.02 = 307.35 bonus from spellpower per tic = 448.04 - 307.35 = 140.7 my spellpower: 982 so spell coefficient = 140.7/982 is about 1/7. So my Hellfire gets 1/7th of your spelldamage per tic, 15/7 on the whole. --- analysis for both ranks and both spellpowers gives me the same result: 1/7 of spellpower per tic. | ||||||||||||
| #211 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Soul |
OK, I figured out what my mistake was. I foolishly figured that the the damage you did would equal the damage inflicted on yourself. Turns out that is not the case, Hellfire has a 15/7 coefficient when damaging mobs, but a 10/7 coefficient for self-inflicted damage.
Mea culpa. As for spells increasing with level, it's just there for most spells. The only way to accurately see the base power of a spell is to look at the tooltip on a character with no talents spent. This is because Blizzard only updates some of the tooltips to reflect the effect that talents have on base damage (for example, Drain Life and Life Tap tooltips are not affected by talents). Anyway, given that there are now new ranks of most abilities obtained within two levels of 70, it doesn't make a big difference. | ||||||||||||
| #212 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | garegga |
ive been reading these forums for a while, trying to raise my game by researching what the clever people do etc..
however, i feel the need to actually post, as i seem to have trapped myself into a cycle of inefficiency which is almost worse than being mocked as the warlock who isnt at the top of DPS meters... firstly, if this isnt appropriate, just delete, but i did see other help type posts in here.. ok, now ive been a lock and nothing else for a few years now, and things really have changed since the MC days.. i understand that i need to cap the To Hit which i have been trying to do with gems and the proper enches. now, i seem to be underpowered in comparison to other locks who have less gear than i do, which is really confusing. my cycle in raids is (Curse)UA,Corr,SL,SB,DP,SB,SB,SB,DP (reapply) or close to that effect. sometimes throwing in Immo or CoD as and when situ calls for them. that is on single target as ive been told off for DoT spamming even tanked targets for aggro purposes. obviously on trash i wont be that effective, but i see people with higher output who shouldnt be out doing me.. The World of Warcraft Armory is it an inefficiency in my set up? - is it on trash i should be dong better? is my cycle not correct? i put a lot of effort into being a serious player who can be relied upon to play well, but i seem to not be getting quite what i want out of this setup. many thanks for any help, cheers. | ||||||||||||
| #213 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ tdurden |
Does someone have a good reasoning/math model about the Shadow Embrace talent?
I'm talking about it's main function, not as an added affliction debuff obviously. Everything deeper than "it's all wasted with overhealing" would be nice | ||||||||||||
| #214 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Vazu |
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Paragraph - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | ||||||||||||
| #215 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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- It looks like you have a LOT of +hit. 5 points in suppression, and then some more on your gear. A lot of that is wasted. - Immolate is probably worth it for you. Use ShadowSeer to find out, or Leulier's spreadsheet. - Use dots on multiple mobs whenever you can. If someone is tanking them (and not tanking anything else) they ought to be able to keep up with the threat easily. - Make sure your dots are up as much as possible (without refreshing stuff that's not run its course yet). Make sure to have an addon that tracks it. Link a WWS if possible, that'll give us some info to work with. | ||||||||||||
| #216 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | garegga |
thank you arelenda,
the reason i am stacking Hit, is i have read that i must hit the 202 cap in order to ensure my spells stick.. now to be fair, i didnt read anything about the 202 in conjunction with suppression but as an affli lock, having sup is almost a given, surely. in kara, i did notice the amount of resists i was getting before i focussed on Hit, and now with the amount i have got (which is considerably less than 202) i get few resists. So, i should stop stacking and focus on +DMG purely on the other slots? In regards to the cycle - once i dot up the main target, dotting offtanked targets takes up the time i would have spent SBing the main target so that by the time reapply comes around i probly would only have time for 1 SB. Then of course the 2nd offtanked target needs reapplying as well. is that how its done? it seems awkward, however i understand raiding isnt meant to be easy, i just like to know if im doing things in the correct way. | ||||||||||||
| #217 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Heathcliff |
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You wouldn't give up 30 spell damage for 5 spell hit, would you? Naturally if you had a piece with 25 spell crit, you wouldn't give that up for a piece with 3 more spell damage, right? Every stat has relative values. The spreadsheet at <http://www.leulier.com/> will give you a good starting point for figuring out what these are for your build. For affliction, 1 point of spell damage is going to be worth about 0.7 point of spell hit. Had you not had suppression to max out dots, this would be about 1.2. In regards to your DOT cycles on two targets... that's okay that you only have time for 1 SB. Think of SBs as fillers in between refreshing dots. You're going to do more DPS and more DPM by applying dots. However, if you have two targets, and your raid leader wants one dead ASAP, ignore the other one and SB the first. You might do 160% your normal damage by splitting your DPS, but your tanks are taking 200% the damage. Minimizing raid wipes always comes before maximizing personal DPS. | ||||||||||||
| #218 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
For maximizing damage, you should only cast SB if you can't cast any other spell that by the end of its duration has higher damage-per-cast-time than SB. Only Life tap when you would SB otherwise. In fact, if you have so many targets that you're losing uptime on the first mob, then you can drop a lower DPCT dot. If you have enough targets that you could keep busy casting JUST your highest DPCT dot, your DPS should be killer.
You don't need points in suppression if your gear has enough hit on it. Look at the spreadsheet with your gear, but if I recall correctly stacking pure shadow damage has pretty nasty returns. Last edited by Trickykid : 10/29/07 at 3:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #219 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arveene |
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Edit: I would also work on that grammar thing before you receive another infraction for it =( | ||||||||||||
| #220 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | garegga |
Ok, thanks all i got really good advice there. I have Shadowseer now and will be doing an upper Kara run shortly. Hopefully ill be able to put it all into practice with good results and ill post the results.
Thanks again it was highly appreciated edit: in the raid last night i came 2nd or 1st depending on whether you include a couple of goes on illhoof after prince.. It seems Immo wasnt really doing much, so i dropped using it and used SB instead. Thank you again Last edited by garegga : 10/30/07 at 4:14 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #221 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Pentamorfi |
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| #222 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Lanik |
Another spec
I've tinkered a bit with another spec, which - at least for me - has proven to be quite useful in a raiding enviroment. The link and details are below.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft This is a hybrid build that's crossed my mind while I was playing a SM/Ruin build and it seemed like an improvement, since for higher levels of spelldmg, the heavy-SB reliant dps increases more then just 5%, since SM's 10% dmg is added to initial shadowbolt dmg, while the succ DS debuff adds 15% after spelldmg coefficient calculations (final dmg). I decided to give it a try, since our RL allowed it, and while I can't say I've always been top dps, most of the times when I was free to do a dmg curse I ended up quite high on the dmg meters (being slightly undergeared in comparison to the others in my raid). The utility of such a build is that it has both Demonic Sacrifice and Ruin, and outputs high-ish shadowbolts (not as high as 0/21/40 or 0/40/21, but still pretty good), as well as instant corruption, improved life tap and the occasional Nightfall proc. I'd also like to add that I haven't done the maths to verify this against a SM/Ruin spec, but from the trade-offs (losing Blood Pact, Siphon Life, Contagion, Dark Pact -possibly biggest downside of all 3-, while gaining Demonic Aegis, Fel Stamina and Intellect, Demonic Embrace and ofc extra shadow damage from Demonic Sacrifice) it seems worth it in terms of personal dps. This is not a must-have build, but it's an option for those who like high SBs (and improved ISB uptime), as well as instant Corruption and improved CoA. | ||||||||||||
| #223 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Palahniuk |
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As far as non-cookie cutter hybrid builds go, I've given some thought to pursuing a 30/21/10 build. I ran a Leulier on it with my current gear setup, and unless I'm mistaken its damage output is nearly identical to the current 0/21/40 build I run. As far as possible pros and cons of such a build... Advantages: - Imp LT and SL allow me the ability to rely significantly less on healers to maintain my damage output. - The mobility afforded by instant corr, SL, and nightfall is invaluable in later content. - I still get to take advantage of the half-cast meta. - I get to take advantage of the 4pc T5 set bonus, which is completely inconceivable with 0/21/40. Alternatively, 2pc T6 would do nicely with this build as well. - 35% bonus shadow damage ensures that the build would scale VERY well with gear. Disadvantages: - Debuff slots, debuff slots, debuff slots. - Lacks the raid utility afforded by SE, Malediction, or the ability to keep ISB up as much as possible afforded by a heavy destro build. Possible variants/restrictions: - It's very possible to take 4/5 SE with this build if your guild doesn't have a SE lock already. My current one does. - Requires that one be hit-capped or nearly hit-capped from gear (but I think that any serious end-game lock should be hit-capped anyway, personally). Has anyone had any practical experience with BT/Hyjal raiding with such a build, or a variation thereof? Perhaps it's a ridiculous idea, but I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts on it. | ||||||||||||
| #224 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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http://elitistjerks.com/506250-post2109.html is one. In short, you gain imp LT, a better Corruption, and Siphon Life. You lose 8% crit on Shadowbolt, and your Shadowbolts will hit for less than 0/21/40. Given that this spec relies on Shadow Bolt more than anything for its dps output, the results are obvious. Your spell cycle would be Corruption every 18 seconds, Siphon Life every 30 seconds, and every other spell would be Shadow Bolt. If your healers are unable to compensate for the occasional lifetap a Destruction Warlock needs, then I suggest ditching the 30/21/10 Warlock and getting a healer instead. | ||||||||||||
| #225 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #226 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Palahniuk |
I apologize for not reading everything more thoroughly and duplicate posting. I'm still confused why Leulier says that the two builds return roughly equivalent dps (mine was <5 dps difference between that build and 0/21/40)... less time spent life-tapping over the course of a ten minute fight?? I assume I must be overlooking something.
Thank you for your feedback, regardless. | ||||||||||||
| #227 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Improved Life Tap is pretty nice in theory. To give you an idea: Destruction warlocks require 400 mana for a Shadowbolt, which they cast approximately every 2.5 seconds, so they use 1600 every 10s. After a minute (9600 mana), mana pool is empty, so further bolts need to be compensated with Life Tap per 4 bolts. That's without BOW or pots. An estimate of 5 LTs per minute after the first is the very worst case scenario, I'd say. So in a 10 minute fight, it's 9x5=45, which would be reduced to 38ish with Imp LT, so you'd gain 10seconds of casting time in a ten minute fight (600s), under optimal conditions. That's the equivalent of 1.66% haste, roughly, or 25 haste rating. And it makes you require less healing. Certainly a nice talent, but in no way should you go out of your way to pick it up. Last edited by Arelenda : 10/30/07 at 12:43 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #228 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | deadaxe |
I'm sorry if this question has been discussed before in this thread. Basically what I want to know is what is the general take on adding immolate into the sb spam for your standard 0/21/40 build. From what I can see immolate does more dps than shadowbolt, but from what I've gathered from countless top end guild warlocks, most of em don't do immolate at all.
Their explanation being to keep more ISB's up and at the same time "its more dps". This is what boogles me. So I'd like to hear more opinions on whether to use immo or not. Survivability/self sustainability aside this is what im looking at: With immo: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft W/o immo: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft | ||||||||||||
| #229 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
You don't want immolate because:
-It will result in less ISB uptime (big raid dps loss) -Likely more user error (a second button to press :P, and have to pay attention to Dot-timers) -Have to pick up talents, which could be used on non-useless things (Nether Prot/Soul Leech) -Takes a debuff slot -Doesn't benefit from spell haste -At high gear levels, SB is more Dmg/Casttime anyways Only time i'll use immolate is on movement bosses; something like supremus if hes about to go OOR, or Shahraz if shes vuln. to fire and I'm not lazy/feel like pressing another button. | ||||||||||||
| #230 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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I'm in BT with 0/21/40. I occasionally use it on bosses as my first spell, so I don't risk aggroing to an early crit, and Shadow Weaving/ISB are not up at that point. Other than that, I can only echo what Rochan says. | ||||||||||||
| #231 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | deadaxe |
I dont exactly want to pick up nether prot as i MIGHT be tanking some stuffs here and there once in a while.
As for gear, tbh im really not too sure about taking haste rating because im not in US. I.e. i have a 400~500ping and even with a stopcasting macro i personally dont think i can take much advantage out of the 0.1sec faster casts when my reaction is taken into account :P. Might be interesting come 2.3 tho. Gear wise I basically have 2 sets which i have yet to test out which does more dps but basically: More crit = 1236shad dmg, maxed hit, 19.68% crit (w/devastation = 24.68%) More dmg = 1311, maxed hit, 16.34% crit (w/ devastation = 18.34%) Definitely dont feel like it is worth trading 80+- dmg for 3.x% crits. Anyways with my current gear is it worth it to cast immo? no? PS: looking after a 2nd spell is in no way difficult :P ive been affliction for as long as i know so i have no problems keeping ONE dot up lol | ||||||||||||
| #232 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
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And for me it wasn't that keeping a dot up was hard, it's that the biggest losses in casting time are the "between casts" periods. Shorter spells make that happen more. EDIT: removed NP proc issues -- apparently it's a problem for Kael. Last edited by Trickykid : 10/30/07 at 4:07 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #233 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
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| #234 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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It works fine for Leotheras. It does not proc on him, probably by design. It does NOT work fine for Kael'thas, though, if you're tanking Capernian. Nether protection procs can get someone killed. Even if you're fast with clicking off the buff (or use the macro) it's one spell aimed at someone else. | ||||||||||||
| #235 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #236 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
Nether Protection doesn't work on Illidan either it was funny watching people get owned by shadowbolts and people screaming on vent that they pulled agro the first time we had a NP warlock tank.
I've read you can spam some sort of /cancelaura Nether Protection macro while tanking but I've not confirmed if this is reliable or not. Either way, it's pretty stupid that it makes us unable to tank virtually all bosses Warlocks are supposed to tank. | ||||||||||||
| #237 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
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| #238 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | LCN |
A long time lurker signing in for duty. o/
Anyway, on to the question. How is the healthstone crit % calculated? Is it the spell crit %, melee crit % or some random fixed number, like 15-20% or so? Now this may sound mad, but during the 2 years I've played this game with the 2 of my warlocks I've never really even thought about this. | ||||||||||||
| #239 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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Sort by crit rate, and you get everyone that has high spell crit on top. While not proven, I'd say spell crit % is far more likely than any other possible theory. Last edited by Arelenda : 11/01/07 at 7:19 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #240 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | LCN |
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On one hand it doesnt make sense that spell crit % would effect it, seeing as (as far as I know) consuming a healthstone is not a spell effect, rather a consumable effect of some sorts. One guess I've heard was that it would be the spell crit %, but it'd be tallied in when the stone is created, not when it's consumed. That makes no sense at all tbh. | ||||||||||||
| #241 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | doogless |
I'd guess consuming a Healthstone counts as a spell, since Healthstone crits can proc stuff like [Shiffar's Nexus-Horn]
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| #242 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #243 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | LCN | |||||||||||||
| #244 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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Again this is purely anecdotal. | ||||||||||||
| #245 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Crepe |
The message in the combat log is "Your healthstone heals you for X" or "Your healthstone critically heals you for 2*X", so I suspect it's your spellcrit rate.
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| #246 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Shouldn't they crit for 1.5X?
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| #247 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Furio | |||||||||||||
| #248 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
It's 1.5x.
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| #249 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Even with buffs, your normal would be 120% and the crit is 1.5X of that 120%...
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| #250 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Bubonic |
Some people have mentioned using fighting succubus with lash of pain on certain fights to gain best dps with demo build.
Doesnt lash of pain consume ISB uptime? And if it does is it really worth using? | ||||||||||||
| #251 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Crepe |
Hadn't actually bothered checking if Ruin effected them or not. Checking back over my guild's WWS logs, I see one critically healing me for 4717 = 2080 (base) * 1.20 (talented HS) * 1.5 (crit) * 1.26 (talented FA).
They're not "destruction" spells, so this makes sense. (And yes, I know talented HS only effects the HS produced, not consumed. I just wanted to calculate from the base value, since I couldn't remember the talented value off-hand.) | ||||||||||||
| #252 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #253 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
There is no meta gem section.
While atm the MSD is the best Meta (assuming you don't need yellow gems, otherwise use 12 damage) In 2.3, there are 4 choices: MSD (nerfed to 45 sec cooldown and 6 second buff, use 1 more blue than yellow) 12 damage (old standby, needs 2 yellow/1 red) CSD (12 crit rating and 3% better crits, use just 2 blue gems) Bracing Earthstorm Diamond (9 damage and 2% -threat use more yellow/red than blue) For Destro/Demon, CSD will be the best, but for Affliction you have a choice. IMO, the BED is the best, because you only need one yellow (use red in other places) and more -threat isn't too bad. | ||||||||||||
| #254 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | PSGarak |
There's also a meta gem from the Ogri'La flask-place event that gives 14dmg/5% stun resist. [Imbued Unstable Diamond], Imbued Unstable Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft
Cost is 100 apexis shards, and requires beating the third wave in the event, which probably takes a 25-man raid with good coordination. | ||||||||||||
| #255 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
In addition to needing 100 shards (not hard to get) 25 people there to help you, you also need exactly 3 yellow gems.
Not worth getting, the damage lost from 3 yellows is too much (compared to just 2 yellow for +12 damage). | ||||||||||||
| #256 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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| #257 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
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Not sure if the armory would show us rather or not the gem was active but it does appear to be active. | ||||||||||||
| #258 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
It seems all those posters are wrong. Since the meta is appears to be active on that profile, it seems the meta requirement is at least 3 yellow gems.
My opinion remains, for the best dps you use all reds (assuming hit capped), needing at least 3 yellows is bad. If the OP wants to fix the gem requirements (to at least 3 yellows), might as well add that the Ashtongue Talisman of Shadows is generally not with using, even with instant corruption, due to low proc rate and short duration of the buff. However, if there was a situation where you could constantly have 2 corruptions up at the same time, the trinket starts to become very useful. | ||||||||||||
| #259 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | KnThrak |
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Depends basically on what you get your hands on first. | ||||||||||||
| #260 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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The yellow gem requirement _seems_ to have been dropped. I don't see it anywhere, while I can see all other meta gem requirements correctly on wowhead and thottbot. I'll update about the talisman. | ||||||||||||
| #261 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
It may be worth noting in the OP that when using the succubus with 0/40/21 or any variant that Lash of Pain probably shouldn't be used due to it's affect on ISB uptime.
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| #262 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #263 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Krathis |
Yeah it is actually. Completely missed that line.
"Basic gear choices (see below) Spell hit > Spell Haste > Spell damage > Spell Crit" I show Hit > Damage > Haste > Crit for a 1400 spell damage, 25 crit, 12 hit demo 'lock and show damage pulling ahead of haste on a few spec and stat variants. This goes for both full felguard builds and succubus builds (rather or not the succubus is attacking). Because Demo relies on Immolate and Corruption in the casting rotation I don't see how haste could pull ahead of spell damage for the build, especially considering spell damage affects demon melee damage and haste does not. Unless of course you drop Immolate and Corruption from the cast sequence but even then I show damage ahead for both builds (though the gap gets closed significantly). Am I missing something? Last edited by Krathis : 11/07/07 at 5:43 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #264 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Wakazashi |
I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should buy BoJ gear in 2.3 that has spellhaste on it, less spell damage, no crit or hit compared to my current gear.. all about maximizing my DPS..
My toons name is Lyblo on Veknilash armory The World of Warcraft Armory I raid 0/21/40 i'll be picking up the s3 spellblade for a 146 damage increase (w/ soulfrost) over my current weapon very soon. and i've got about 250 dkp to spend on SSC/TK loot (we're phase 4 on KT so should be entering MH/BT Soonish) just wondering how many badges I should collect for that gear as I've never used spellhaste before in calculations. | ||||||||||||
| #265 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
The lieuler's spreadsheet at the front page should answer your haste questions...
Last edited by galzohar : 11/08/07 at 8:16 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #266 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
Just noticed three oversights:
Spirit If you have a Priest with Improved Divine Spirit present, 10% (not 5) of your Spirit goes to spell power. Therefore 1 Spirit = 0.1 spell damage. Affliction On the first note, add Siphon Life to the list of spells to keep up. Demo The ranking says Spell hit > Spell Haste > Spell damage > Spell Crit, but Damage beats haste with Demo, because the Demon gets 57% of +damage you have and Demo still casts Corruption and Immolate, which get little returns from haste. | ||||||||||||
| #267 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
Edit: Removing post; changes either edited in or I'm blind.
Last edited by Trickykid : 11/09/07 at 6:36 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #268 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Anyakfe |
About the 0/21/40, I'm surprised you wrote:
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1critrate = ~0.84 dmg 1hasterate = ~0.87 dmg 1hitrate = ~1.37 if not capped, 0 if capped Shouldn't be Hit > Spell Damage > Haste/Crit ? On top of that, If we consider that ISB also gives a boost to the affli locks & sp dots (and not only the personal dps boost) the critrate should be a little bit higher. | ||||||||||||
| #269 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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I'm not sure why the spreadsheet would different. 0/21/40 typically uses only shadow bolts and curses, though. If you include Immolate or Corruption you might see different results. | ||||||||||||
| #270 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Anyakfe |
Unfortunatly, Shadowseer does not work with the french client :/.
About the spreadsheet it's using only CoD & SB spam. | ||||||||||||
| #271 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Kobal |
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Since I wanted to have numbers that are at least a little more precise than handwaving, I tried to include an estimate of the Raid DPS gain via my contribution to ISB-Uptime into my own spreadsheet. While it is not 100% precise, the estimate is not that bad either. And the results (0/21/40 spec here) were more or less what I expected: For individual DPS, yes, critrating hovers somewhere between 0,8 and 0,9 spelldamage, but for raid DPS it jumps up to between 1,1 and 1,3 spelldamage, of course heavily dependent of the number (and spec) of the other warlocks and shadow priests in the raid. | ||||||||||||
| #272 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Anyakfe |
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It would be very interesting to calculate the relative stats coeff based on the raid composition intead of the personal dps impact. | ||||||||||||
| #273 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Marklar |
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edit: For anyone curious about the encounter, it seemed trivial compared to Gruul. My guild did the event on a whim when our Gruul raid finished 5 minutes before the event started. We had no idea what would happen and basically just tanked the bosses and AoE'd everything else. Last edited by Marklar : 11/09/07 at 4:33 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #274 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Nas |
I've been having a hard time deciding whether or not haste would be viable when one has a high variable latency of 400-600 ms. I suppose my logic is with such high latency regardless of how well SBs are stopcasted, stopping some will take long enough to negate any benefit one would get from haste. Would someone with high latency benefit less from haste than someone with say roughly 100ms or less? Or is my logic flawed?
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| #275 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
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Also keep in mind 2.3 is likely coming very soon, so there will be changes to the stopcasting mechanic. | ||||||||||||
| #276 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
latency's effect on haste
Latency has very small, yet existant, effect on the effectiveness of haste. If you figure out how much time you lose for every spellcast, then figure out the "effective haste" ((old time between casts / new time between casts) - 1, after adding latency), you'll see that you get quite close to the same benefit somoene with 0 latency would be getting, although slightly slightly less.
With latency being X, H being the haste (0.01=1%) and T being the base casting time: haste gain with latency = (X + T) / (X + T / (1+H)) - 1 Note that X is the time lost and not your actual latency, so even with 1000ms ping if you can stopcast and only lose 0.4s on average between casts then X=0.4 and not 1. Basically if X isn't << T then your DPS sucks so bad no raiding guild will take you anyway, which should be enough to justify my X<<T assumption. With X << T: haste gain with latency = H - X*H*(1+H)/T + (a bunch of less significant stuff) The "bunch of less significant stuff" is less significant because it includes (X/T)^2, ^3 etc which are significantly smaller than X/T if X << T. As you can see your loss of haste dut to latency is very small and is estimated as roughly X*H*(1+H)/T. For common haste ratings, H is also << 1 in which case you can estimate the loss of latency as H*X/T, so with 1% haste and 0.2 delay between casts on a 2.5s cast spell you lose approximately 0.01*0.2/2.5=0.0008 or 0.08% hatse, and are left with 0.92% haste where a player with 0 latency would get 1%. Feel free to copy-paste this explanation wherever is relevant (assuming I made no errors). | ||||||||||||
| #277 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Change the value of spell haste from the old value of 20ish to the new value of 15.77, and you will see haste beat damage for SB/Curse spam. | ||||||||||||
| #278 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | torky |
CoA vs CoS
me and a frend are debating what produces more dps for a affliction warlock. does 3 points in malediction do more dmg than 2 points in CoA, considering i use sifon life, corruption unstable affliction and SB. i'm thinking using CoA is better but he dpes bring a good point in that CoS buffs all my shadow spells, so if anyone can help me out i would greatly apreciate it.
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| #279 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
If you're the only shadow-DPS in the raid, CoA/CoD will do more damage than CoS. Check your local warlock spreadsheet for details. The point of CoS is for raiding, and being able to increase DPS for all shadow/arcane DPS.
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| #280 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | torky |
ty for the info
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| #281 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Enough that there are 2 shadow users in the raid, CoS is generally worth using, which means as an affliction warlock you'll be expected to cast talented CoS which makes points in CoA pretty much wasted. TBH you'll never run with less shadow users in a 25-man, maybe in a 5/10-man and even then usually you'll at least have a shadow priest too.
And don't forget CoD>talented CoA on most bosses so there isn't much point speccing imp CoA anyway. Again, you can check the spreadsheet to get numbers for whatever you want. | ||||||||||||
| #282 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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However, this is only for Affliction warlocks, for everyone else Doom is the best dps curse. | ||||||||||||
| #283 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | GSH |
Which Blessings do warlocks prefer? The first Blessing is probably Salvation, but do you prefer Kings or Wisdom as the second Blessing (assume only 2 paladins).
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| #284 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Rahlar |
Salv is obviously the first choice. Beyond that it somewhat depends on the situation; when standing and nuking the 50 mp/5 from wisdom means fewer lifetaps, but most fights have enough movement to allow for comfortable lifetapping and wisdom's contribution isn't exactly *massive*, amounting to one less lifetap every three minutes. Kings gives more health which is incredibly important in T6 encounters, as wel as boosting mana and crit (albeit by a small amount). I personally prefer kings for most things, but arguments can be made for wisdom due to it having a more direct impact on your DPS.
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| #285 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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1. Salvation. Only one that matters, really. 2. Kings gives you a higher health/mana pool and a bit more crit chance because of added intellect. Even for non-demonologists this one is usually the best. 3. Wisdom gives you additional mana, reducing the need for Life Tap/Dark Pact slightly. You get 50mp5 talented or about a Life Tap's worth per 2-3 minutes. 4. Blessing of Light improves healing done on you by paladins slightly. Blessings are typically more important to other classes. Salvation is still very convenient, allowing almost full dps at all times when combined with Soul Shatter. | ||||||||||||
| #286 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Antoine |
Can somebody shoot me a list of the t6 bosses where it's not safe to go above 100% of MT threat? I know you don't pull aggro on a tank n spank from range until you're at 130, but are there bosses where if you go above 100 you mess something up? I'm envisioning the tank missing a fear on Archimonde and him going after me and sticking, or something like that. Are there any bosses where secondary abilities mess up if you go above 100?
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| #287 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | galzohar |
Fears after 2.3 should no longer cause this sort of things (although now I'm pretty sure they do although I hadn't done archimonde himself, on nightbane and even nef/ony back in the day it was almost obvious although not thoroughly tested). However I've noticed some boss (forgot where it was, wasn't in a raid) where he stunned the tank and went to the highest on threat (me) without me doing any damage between the stun and him switching targets nor me going anywhere near 130% (but was above 100%).
Overall a list of those bosses would definitely be very useful if any guild actually dared to test. | ||||||||||||
| #288 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
Gorefiend and Bloodboil you don't want to go over 100% of the MT.
On Illidan during the demon/normal form changes you don't want to go over 100% either, unless you are tanking. However there are other things to distract you during that time, but the point stands. | ||||||||||||
| #289 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Myul |
Your tank eat fear and you loot Archimonde anyway?
You can go "all out" at: - Supremus, Kite Phase - Akama, Shade Phase and on the mobs upstairs - RoS, Phase One - Gurtogg Bloodboil, during Felrage And you can do some crazy amount of dps with very decent tanks (1200+ tps) on the common tank&spank bosses, too. An early Soulshatter should be enough for the whole time on these fights. | ||||||||||||
| #290 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | leber |
My first EJ post, though I have read for a long time.
I was wondering if we could delve into the diminishing return factor for haste. I am switching from 41/0/20 to 0/21/40 and I was building a gear set it. The aforementioned benefit from haste is most certainly something that you would want to include into and 0/21/40 set, but I don't want to stack too much and waste itemization points on something that I am receiving extremely diminished returns from. Especially since the majority of haste gear has nothing besides stats, haste, and damage. So how much is too much? As I said this decision was a recent one and still haven't played around too much with Leulier's spreadsheet regarding 0/21/40, figured I had planned on bringing it up anyway so might as well make a post early as I wanted some outside opinion as well. This might be something that should be mentioned in the Compendium once some conclusive evidence comes about concerning haste's diminishing returns as it pertains to 0/21/40. Again this could also be something that has been brought up in the other thread that I tend to do a lot more skimming in rather then attentive reading. If that is the case, my most sincere apology for being a waste of space. <3 Last edited by leber : 11/11/07 at 2:23 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #291 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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100 haste rating is about 5-6% extra dps output 100 crit rating is about 4-5% 100 damage is about 4-5%. This is with a 0/21/40 build, 1300ish spellpower, 12% hit, 24ish% crit, 5% haste (and a Draenei Elemental Shaman) I'm guessing that at around 10-15% haste you'll see equal gains from each. However, since the differences are so small, latency is probably a lot larger factor than any low amount of haste vs other stat tradeoff. Since casting mechanics are changing in 2.3 things might be different there. Your mileage may vary. | ||||||||||||
| #292 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 Edited onPatch 2.2.3 | Telkster |
The following questions seem to come up constantly and it may be useful to have answers or links to answers for them in the compendium:
Boss armor is provided in a link, but when it's ok to use Recklessness due to cleaves/etc (bosses and phases of bosses) would be helpful. Debuff priority for all classes so affliction warlocks know when to kick immolate or kick another class member in the ass for using a stupid debuff would also be useful. I'll try to search for the posts but they're mentioned/asked about so many times it gets tough. Edit: Found a recklessness thread: CoR/amp/dampen magic Last edited by Telkster : 11/12/07 at 11:35 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #293 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Trickykid |
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Raid Debuffs | ||||||||||||
| #294 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
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Gorefiend I've been above the tank many times. Illidan though, definately, heh. The shadowbolt is DEADLY (and on occasion will own the raid if they over agro during the transition)! | ||||||||||||
| #295 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | Arelenda |
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This is assuming Theron follows the same mechanic with Doom as Prince with Enfeeble. I didn't risk testing this, for obvious reasons. | ||||||||||||
| #296 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | rochan |
Well, better him than me :P
I don't believe this is true, we've never had the MT get ghosted. Unless someone can show proof this occurs? | ||||||||||||
| #297 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.2.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
On Gorefiend, I did pull aggro once by going over 110%, I don't recall how it happened, but I think it has something to do with his casting of the Shadow Damage spell (where he changes targets) and when he rechecks aggro list going back to the MT.
There is no way primary aggro can get ghosted, although if someone pulled and then the ghost debuff's timer was up, it could happen. | ||||||||||||
| #298 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Phantasie |
Also if you go too far ahead, you can get ghost then accidentally clip his melee range for the threat cap when running off his platform to the ghost spot. This causes him to 1shot you then ghosts squirt out into the raid.
I guess this depends on your tank/raid position but i'm pretty sure everyone uses the same universal spot. | ||||||||||||
| #299 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
Here is me: The World of Warcraft Armory
The spreadsheet says I should be doing 1150 dps roughly, but I don't find myself doing that DPS in any of the fights I'm doing (except AOE stuff where I come close, but I'm pretty cautious on AOE so I could probably be higher on those). Here are some sample WWS's from different kinds of fights (I don't get to raid much so I'm at the mercy of the schedule on the kinds of fights I get to go to): Wow Web Stats - Solarian death (that's the kind of AOE fight I was talking about) Loading... - Lurker death Wow Web Stats - Magtheridon death (I think the guy at the top of the meters was on a cube right next to Mag, so he could DPS almost the whole time...my cube was at the opposite end of the room) Wow Web Stats - Void Reaver death (note I was stupid, died once to orbs, once to aggro...very stupid) Wow Web Stats - Alar death (this is me going nuts in phase 1, and returning to normal phase 2) So there ya go, I was hoping to give a nice selection. In summation, I get it that if I make less mistakes (like dying on orbs *cry*) my dps will go up, but is there anything you can tell from these that I could improve on? I just want to kick ass on the few days I get to raid. | ||||||||||||
| #300 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
Sheets only tell you your dps in fights like Al'ar P1 at most ... anything with heavy movement, target switching will lower your dps. Though if you compare spreadsheet with a fight like Teron or Rage, Mag P2 if you don't click, you get quite close values but you rarely reach them due to various reasons.
There's also getting a decent estimation of LT/DP frequency and regen from spriest, if you have one. In a fight where I don't pot/have batteries I can go up to 15 LTs, huge dps loss. If in best regen group and potting I pretty much never LT, max 1-2x depending on pot values and batteries' quality. So if you want to compare, find a log/meter with a fight that's as close to stand still and nuke as possible, calculate a bit how much time you spent LTing then fill up the spreadsheet and see how you did. | ||||||||||||
| #301 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
Ah, so what would be the best way to gauge how I'm doing? Find other WWS's from other guilds and see how those Warlocks are doing? As I said, I don't get to raid much, so I doubt I will get a chance to do one of those ideal fights like you are talking about, the day I get to raid we are usually doing progression bosses and I don't see Teron or Rage coming up any time soon.
I tried searching on WWS's site but the only way I could find to search was it showed the highest ranked guilds first, that didn't help much, as it just makes me feel crappy seeing how much better they are all doing. :p | ||||||||||||
| #302 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
IMO a warlock who gets to use a damage curse should always be top 5, assuming the raid is equally geared and the fight doesn't tailor to one class extensively. We are a very powerful DPS class. If they are doing a bitch curse, then top 10-15 is more likely. Warlock DPS seems to skyrocket late T5 and once you reach T6. Gear allows more warlocks to use destruction effectively and the ISB bump is huge. I was doing 1000 dps back on Hydross but now I can easily do 1700-1800 mashing my face over the keyboard.
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| #303 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Aliah_KT |
Diminishing Returns
First of all let me just say thank you to the original author of this thread and all of the authors of excellent information that has subsequently been posted. I have not read through every single post, so forgive me for missing something if I did, but I have seen some vague references to diminishing returns on Spell Haste and Spell Damage and was wondering if anyone has any hard figures on these numbers. Also, can someone confirm that, as of patch 2.3 (today), the Spell Haste coefficient is indeed 15.77 instead of 20.8?
Thank you in advance for your input! | ||||||||||||
| #304 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | RNemes |
It seems clear that the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond will be *the* Gem to get for 0/21/40 now, but I have been wondering just *how* good exactly is it? My guild is just at the stage of working on Vashj now so we have a ways to go before some of the more obvious choices of helms with Meta gem sockets are available from BT.
My decision is a fairly big one then: Keep my Spellstrike Hood complete with proc or replace that with the Engineering helm? (that being the only one i see that is competitive---) Normally I make great use of the Trinket-wiki for class/spec at Shadowpriest.com to measure the dps of procs and gems, but CSD does not seem to be up there yet so I have tried to figure it out for myself: Assuming Crit rate of 25% and an average Shadowbolt crit of 6000 over the course of 10 Shadowbolts we have: (this is taking the CSD bonus to be 1.06 given the scaling with Ruin) (with no CSD) 2.5 * 6000 = 15,000 dmg. (with CSD) 2.5 * (6000 * 1.06) = 15,900 dmg. So 900 damage is gained over 10 shadowbolts from the CSD. Assuming a "perfect world" scenario, 10 shadowbolts should take 25 seconds to cast, so (900dmg/25 seconds) = + 36 DPS. Feeding this DPS result into the leulier spreadsheet, it converts into ~+45 dmg (for my spec). Without delving too far into the minutiae of my particular situation, suffice it to say that it would be an ultimate gain of about the equivalence of +15 dmg or so for me. (the loss of the SS proc and the need to shuffle some gems around to stay at the hit cap gimp my potential gain here) This is all assuming my math and methodology are anywhere near being correct. I am still not sure it is an entirely worthwhile trade-off at this point. (As I would need to drop a profession and level up engineering.) But this is why I am posting here. Does anyone see an obvious flaw with this method of quantifying the exact dps worth of CSD? Last edited by RNemes : 11/13/07 at 2:08 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #305 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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That was changed in 2.2. | ||||||||||||
| #306 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
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| #307 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
I think you're double counting the bonus. The gem gives you 3% more damage over your previous crit damage. For non-ruin that means Base*1.5*1.03. For Ruin that means Base*2*1.03. You were doing Base*2*1.06.
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| #308 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
With ruin and CSD, crits are 206%.
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| #309 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | LockApologist |
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| #310 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | RNemes |
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+30 dps sounds about right to me once you throw out the "perfect world" scenario and enter the scenario of life-tapping, etc. (and just a nit, but the CR bonus itself is just 12.) | ||||||||||||
| #311 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gnomey |
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Thx in advance. | ||||||||||||
| #312 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Aliah_KT |
I appreciate all the hard work that has gone into the DPS spreadsheet that everyone seems so fond of using on this forum, but that's not exactly what I was looking for. I was hoping someone knew of the actual formula for diminishing returns on Spell Haste and/or Spell Damage, or even some kind of conversion table if applicable. I'll keep playing around with the spreadsheet in the meantime, but I haven't been able to find anything of this sort imbedded in the existing calculations yet. I may just be missing something, but if any of you have further info on this I would love it.
Thank you for giving me confirmation on the Spell Haste rating. I thought that was a 2.3 change... my bad! :-D | ||||||||||||
| #313 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Patch notes tend to be outdated all the time, though. I assume it'll be in. To other posters: Haste was indeed changed to 15.77 for 1% in 2.2, I wrote a hastehack a while ago to get your haste rating on screen (replacing the penetration value). I uploaded it here: Hastehack - Interface Bars - World of Warcraft Mods, Addons, and More!. The +3% crit damage gem seems impressive, as soon as the patch hits I'd like to see data on it. I don't have a meta gem slot hat at the moment so I can't test it myself, but I'm very interested to see confirmed results of the 3% bonus interacting with ruin. Simple math for the new gem: let's take best case scenario: - Assuming 33% crit chance - No spells but Shadow Bolt used - The 3% is added after Ruin, so total of 206% A 3% damage boost to 33% of your spells is about a 1% gain in dps. This is the equivalent of about 20 spell power. | ||||||||||||
| #314 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roywyn |
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It increases base crit damage from 150% to 154.5%, thus increases the crit bonus from 50% to 54.5%, and ruin makes it 109%, this critting for 209%. That's the last I checked on the PTR (confirmed by others) with checking min/max values of certain spells. | ||||||||||||
| #315 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Chimera |
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Here, I made you a picture showing how haste effects cast time and dps: ![]() As you can see from the second graph, shadow bolt DPS scales linearly with haste, it has no diminishing returns. Is this what you were asking? Or were you asking about the relative scaling of haste vs spell damage? IE the more spell damage you have, the more (absolute) DPS you gain from haste, and likewise the more haste you have the more DPS you gain from spell damage. | ||||||||||||
| #316 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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A generalized formula would have to be pretty complex because the benefit of an additional point of any given rating is a function of all of the other ratings. I've been thinking of trying to work out that formula but it's really not worth it when the spreadsheet contains all the actionable information. Your best bet is to plug the numbers into a spreadsheet and see how the ratings pan out. | ||||||||||||
| #317 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
Mathematically it has no diminishing returns vs DPS as you've proven, however, when you include lifetapping, there are slight diminishing returns vs dps because Lifetap gets no benefit from haste.
And by using the Leulier sheet, you can see Haste diminishes relative to +damage. (I.e. keeping +damage constant while increasing haste has diminishing returns of haste vs +dmg.) However, keeping haste constant and increasing +damage increases haste's relative +damage. | ||||||||||||
| #318 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Actually if you had no regen other than lifetap haste shouldn't have diminishing returns, as you need to lifetap every X shadowbolts, so haste would effect a certain (large) portion of your casts and that portion would remain equal regardless of how much haste you have.
However regen natureally removes the need to lifetap once per X seconds, but since with haste you lifetap more often your regen removes a smaller part of your lifetaps and thus lifetapping becomes a larger portion of your casts. So if you have any regen it'll cause haste to have slight diminishing returns, and the more regen you have the larger the diminishing retunrs be. Of course haste is still better with regen than with no regen no matter how much regen you have (as lifetaps are a smaller portion of your casting time). In fact, haste will never be worse than for a warlock with 0 regen. It's just that the more haste you get the (slightly) closer you get to getting the benefit of a 0 regen warlock (since your regen becomes less and less significant in comparison to lifetap). | ||||||||||||
| #319 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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| #320 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
On a side note, remember that any kind of diminishing retunrs (or changes in relative values of stats) I've seen so far in the game is totally neglicible when comparing actual items. As in the change in the value of *any* stat due to switching 1-2 items or a few gems is very very small compared ot how much your DPS actually changed from those stats changing. Say (just making up numbers) if at 900 spell damage 1 damage is worth 0.7 crit, and at 920 it's worth 0.69 crit, the fact its value dropped has a neglicible affect on the overall value. If you increased crit by 10 as well, you would get nearly the same results as if you increased damage by 927 even though in reality you got slightly slightly more.
Mathematically this can be shown that 1% DPS increase VIA crit plus 1% DPS increase via spell damage results in DPS*1.01*1.01=DPS*(1+0.1)^2=DPS*(1+0.02+0.01^2)=DPS*(1+0.02+0.0001)~=DPS*1.02. And TBH quite a few item upgrades are under 1% DPS increase total so this rule of "neglect AEP values changing with your stats when comparing items" is actually pretty damn accurate. ![]()
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| #321 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
I've been playing around with the new "anti-stopcast" mechanism that has been implemented, I'm not sure if I'm the only one noticing this but it seems to me that if I time my casts and press my Shadowbolt key when I would usually stopcast it the spell just keeps going over the majority of Quartz's "latency area" before stopping and casting the next cast. I'm not sure if I am being dilusional, but it seems that stopcasting might still have the slight edge if one times it correctly without cancelling any spells?
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| #322 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
I have been casting spells right cast the red line with the new system, but I have a good connection. You can still /stopcast if you think that will perform better.
I am interesting to see some Destro Locks with the new meta showing some old and new WWS. MSD really sucks (of course I knew it would), but as Affliction I like it better than just another 12 damage. Both "main" JWers got CSD after 40 or so kills, so that farming wasn't bad for them. | ||||||||||||
| #323 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
The new pet strength food recipe is a possible reward from the cooking daily quests. By "possible" reward I mean you choose between a crate of meat and a barrel of fish, each of which have a chance to contain a random new recipe, as well as more meat than the daily actually required, on average. I am unaware if certain recipes only drop out of crates or barrels, or if the recipes are entirely shared.
[Kibler's Bits] Kibler's Bits - Items - World of Warcraft requires Buzzard Meat EDIT: wrong recipe >< | ||||||||||||
| #324 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Tyvyr |
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| #325 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
I'd like to touch a bit on threat management as 0/21/40, I seem to always be threat capped over the vast majority of some fights' durations; namely Naj'entus/Rage and sometimes on Teron Gorefiend. Our MT's threat is by no means low, in fact it is top end, and after some thinking I attributed my issues to blowing SoulShatter as soon as I am threat capped, often around the 70% mark of a fight instead of putting up with some DPS downtime and using it closer to the halfway mark - the downtime I would have waiting for the optimal time to shatter would be far less than that I would have to put up with if I shatter too early. That's how I see it anyway.
Just wanted see how other Warlocks in the community deal with threat, if you're putting out the high DPS on a fight with minimal movement requirements, when would you rather slow it down a bit - how do you usually time your shatters? Would downranking Shadowbolt when one is high on threat at the early stages be a good idea? Seeing how part of our utility is ISB, and how we would not be excercising that utility by standing around. Last edited by Nas : 11/14/07 at 10:58 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #326 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Aliah_KT |
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As an example, I believe Shadow Bolt has a damage coefficient of 0.8571. Assuming I have 1000 bonus damage, this means my Shadow Bolt would gain an additional 857.1 damage. If I have 2000 bonus damage, does that mean my Shadow Bolt gains an additional 1714 damage? Likewise, does 3000 bonus damage (totally unrealistic, I realize) mean I gain 2571 to my Shadow Bolts, and so on, or is there some scaling factor thrown in to prevent people from gaining too much from one particular stat? Thanks again to everyone for your input! | ||||||||||||
| #327 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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| #328 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
Mathematically, the best time to soulshatter is around 70%.
Cast CoR if agro is tight, it will give the tank more agro by getting him hit harder (more rage) and also directly increasing his damage. Remember that CoD is less damage/threat than SB. So if you are likely to pull agro, you can cast CoR which should increase your DPS by quite a bit more than CoD in the long run. I suppose you could downrank SBs to keep the debuff up, but I havent really experimented with that. I usually just make sure im full mana by lifetapping if it's too dangerous to cast any more SBs. | ||||||||||||
| #329 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
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Perhaps one of my issues is my unwillingness to be above the MT in threat while I wait for the optimal Shatter moment, should I not be this cautious? | ||||||||||||
| #330 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
On Teron I think I have gone over the tank a few times ... or more, didn't get him ghosted but only locks seem capable of such a thing. Last kill we used paladin tank and while I wasn't in a decent group another destro lock was and he could barely touch 100%. Did pala tank on Rage also and even if I (only) managed like 1.7k dps (me and 1 affli lock in raid, 2 spriests, didn't have any ISB up for the last 30+ seconds of the fight) I barely got to 100% of threat. This is of course without any soulshattering with the paladin.
Most of the time I just find myself forced to SS right off the start though, at like 80-90%, simply forgetting to wait for more than applying a curse but big problems in trying to not aggro, never had outside of Bloodboil without a Tranq Air totem but even there it depends on "luck" with crits. | ||||||||||||
| #331 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
I push my threat pretty hard. I try to stay as close to 130% as I can obviously without going over. I’ll only finish a shadowbolt cast if I am about 6k threat behind the tank incase I get a 9k crit. Also if I have a CoD about to tick, I’ll leave an additional 8k or so threat buffer. So most fights I try to stay at 115-125% threat. Of course there are some fights you don’t want to go this high: Bloodboil, LoL Reaver , Illidan among others.
Also I still haven’t seen evidence you can ghost the MT on Teron by going over 100%. | ||||||||||||
| #332 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #333 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
Actually, spell damage increases in worth with additional stacking at least for 21/40. Not to the point where it's worth sacrificing other stats, however. Each +dmg point increases the DPS of your shadow bolt by a constant amount, but also increases the % of time you're casting SBs (since it decreases LT frequency).
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| #334 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
I've gone past 100% on teron, and i got ghosted as soon as the cooldown was up. I'll assume he doesn't have the prince bug , because if he did i shouldn't have been ghosted.
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| #335 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway | |||||||||||||
| #336 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Initial aggro issues: - Apply dots instead (Immolate, CoA, Corruption), then follow up with SB spam. Typically on trash you want to use CoA on all tanked mobs before anything else anyway. (provided they live 24 seconds). Sustained aggro issues: - Soulshatter as late as possible. Soulshattering too early might make you catch up with the MT later on, which leaves you with no option but to hold dps. To delay the SoulShatter: - Lifetap - Ask to be the CoR warlock instead of using CoD. - Do fight specific stuff. (preemptively moving to a better position, etc) Downranking shadow bolts could in theory work, but the returns will be low since you're eating ISB charges as well. The net effect will be positive if you have a high enough crit chance, but don't expect stellar results. It's better than doing nothing at all, obviously. Personally I rather use any spare time to keep an overview of the fight and figure out what else we could be improving on. I haven't had consistent aggro issues though. Taking it a bit easier for a moment, then Soulshattering usually fixes all my issues. | ||||||||||||
| #337 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Stryn |
As a raiding demo lock, I must confess that I was extremely happy with the pet AI changes in 2.3. I expected my felguard to attack from behind / side, but I really didn't expect him to dynamically adjust during changes in positioning. I was happy with the net DPS increase, and my tanks were pretty happy about the decrease in parrys as well.
Last edited by Stryn : 11/14/07 at 2:26 PM. Reason: Meant to say "AI" instead of "UI," durr. | ||||||||||||
| #338 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #339 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
The best time to soulshatter has EXTREME dependance on your threat/sec VS your MT's threat/sec. The more threat you do over him, the later in the fight you should pop it, and the closer your threat generations are the earlier you should be using it. The idea is to almost pull aggro by the end of the fight being capped until shatter and slowing down and going all out after shatter. If this isn't exactly what's happening then your soulshattering timing is not optimal.
If you're not threat capped, obviously, soulshatter does nothing. | ||||||||||||
| #340 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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Aims: 1) End fight at 130% threat of tank. 2) Only shatter when at 130% of tank. (realistically you'd shatter JUST before 130%... but for the sake of simplicity I'll use 1.3) Fight length = 1 Time of last shatter = N Tank's threat gen = 1/unit-time Lock's threat gen = W/unit-time At time=N, we're at 130% of tank, shatter and in the length of time (1-N) we generate enough threat to get back to 130% of the tank. At the end of the fight the tank has 1 threat, so we can have 1.3. Our threat by the end of the fight is the amount of threat we have after the last shatter (1.3 * N / 2) plus the threat generated in 1-N time (1-N)*W. So we need: 1.3 = (1.3*N/2) + (1-N)W or N = (1.3-W)/(.65-W) Since tank tps = 1, W = warlock_TPS/tank_TPS. So for any given ratio W, this shows the % through the fight when the last shatter should be. Every 5minutes previous to that should have another shatter. So if W>1.3 (ie you generate enough threat to eventually pull), you should hold back to W=1.3 until the first shatter, at which point you can go hog wild. Some example ratios W: ![]() W Boss% at last shatter 1.3 100% 1.4 87% 1.5 76% 1.6 68% 1.7 62% Last edited by Trickykid : 11/14/07 at 8:45 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #341 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
Excellent suggestions, I know that I will definitely lose that paranoia of going over the tank's threat from now on (bar Teron (just to be safe for now, unless the DPS is really needed), Gurtogg and Illidan in T6 content - any other T6 fights where being 120-128% of the tank's threat would be an issue?
I'd say my value of "W" (going by Trickykid's maths) would be roughly a bit over 1.3 on average, but I'll definitely take a closer look next time around - how useful would a mod that calculates the ratio and put it in a little visible box be? Unfortunately I have next to no experience with programming, heh. Although, I guess Omen can do that in a sense, I'll look more closely at the "Threat vs Player" window Omen provides once I get back home. I do typically DoT on incomming, I have found that to be very useful - I would have to work on using CoR on more boss fights as well. We typically only have one Affliction Warlock in the raid, and I usually go for utility Curse duty because of the aforementioned threat issues, as for CoR - I suppose there is more paranoia involved there even though theoratically it would be perfectly fine to use on most boss fights. Last edited by Nas : 11/14/07 at 9:11 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #342 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
Just because I was curious I did some testing.
Shadow Ward was modified in 2.3 to reduce the base absorb, but scale with spell damage. On current 2.3 live server, my Shadow Ward, with base absorb of 875, and with 1220 +shadow damage, absorbed 1270 Shadow damage. This means that Shadow Ward after 2.3 receives about 32% of your +Shadow damage as extra absorb. Compare this to our previous version of Shadow Ward before 2.3 which only absorbed for 900 Shadow damage, this is a buff for me. The break even point where you will absorb the exact same amount as before the patch is about 80 +Shadow damage. Anything more than that, and you will absorb more than before 2.3. Anything below, you will absorb less. This is from my testing, if anybody wishes to test this also, by all means! | ||||||||||||
| #343 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
It actually got some gear scaling as far back as 2.0-ish, although not nearly as much. It was never explicitly documented for shadow ward, although it happened when mages got scaling for fire/frost ward. I want to say that it was around 10%-ish, like all absorb-shield at the time, which would dovetail nicely with me remembering "(1050 absorbed)" or that ballpark from my shadow ward next patch. So it's not as big a buff but it's still pretty big--I'll probably end up netting around 200 on it.
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| #344 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
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| #345 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ebi |
For crafted items, you should mention the epic engineering head, [Destruction Holo-gogs]. Not all of us are tailors.
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| #346 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
Before 2.3, my shadow ward absorbed 1100 damage with 1000 damage gear (was tanking Illidan when I looked it up).
I forgot what it absorbs now, but it is absorbing more damage than before. | ||||||||||||
| #347 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Isn't the engineering headpiece better than spellstirke even if it breaks the set bonus anyway? (at least assuming you have other places to drop damage/crit for hit such as gem slots so you remain capped) Meeting the new meta requirements (12 crit 3% crit damage 2 blue gems) pretty much requires you match the socket bonus on your head plus another item with 1 blue socket, while ignoring socket bonuses on the rest. If you compare this gem setup to a setup of socketing each item optimally you probably won't get much dps difference anyway - probably 5 spell damage worth at the worst, more likely 1-2 spell damage worth net loss from meeting the meta's requirements if not even less (actual number really really depends on your gear and availability of epic gems but it's low in every case).
Then again T5 pretty close to it (with a lot more stam on the side) and you will sooner or later unequip your goggles, while proffessions like enchanting stay forever. Then again you can only have 2 proffessions, but for most people tailoring is quite a must-have. Last edited by galzohar : 11/16/07 at 12:59 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #348 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Soulriper |
You say that shadow/destro spec is the best spec that scales with gear, and that outruns Affliction in high end raids. I'd just like to know when and with what kind of gear, one aff lock should respec and go shadow/destro for raids? How much +spell hit and dmg would he need to make the spec more viable then Affliction?
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| #349 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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| #350 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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It depends more on playstyle, player skill and taste then on spec, at low gear levels. Both specs work and will do good damage. In my experience, even at Khara level destro locks are viable. As more gear becomes available, destruction clearly outperforms affliction. For this reason I recommend having one and only one affliction warlock in a raid, for Blood Pact and Talented CoS. Of course, with Fire mages maybe becoming more viable in 2.3, CoE might make a comeback. | ||||||||||||
| #351 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krathis |
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In my opinion taking more then two affliction 'locks isn't good for raid dps. The other three of you should respec to either less dot heavy builds or dotless builds period. I know there's a lot of people that will tell you not to go destruction until later in the game but this is one of those situations were having some of you respec to it would benefit everyone. | ||||||||||||
| #352 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
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I recently got new frames so I can better see if we are hitting the debuff limit..I never thought about it before, but 40 really isn't that many spots when some classes by themselves can take up 7-8 debuffs. | ||||||||||||
| #353 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
Would it be worth adding [Hex Shrunken Head] to the list of trinkets, as well as [Skull of Gul'dan] ? I'm looking through a couple of threads to find out which would be better - even though in the end, one would ideally want to use both.
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| #354 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Jimad |
I have just a couple of questions regarding the ISB proc, for which I haven't been able to find direct answers.
1) Once ISB procs, and we have 12 seconds or 4 non periodic sources of shadow damage until it expires, does it affect DoTs already applied to the target? Keeping things simple, assume each *unmodified* tick of my Corruption spell is 100 damage. The second ISB is applied to the target, will an already active Corruption then begin to tick for 120, or must a new Corruption be applied in order to benefit from ISB? 2) Suppose there are two warlocks in a raid. If warlock #1 procs an ISB, will warlock #2's ISB proc : a) refresh the original ISB; 2) consume one of the four ISB charges, and not refresh the original ISB; or 3) stack. My apologies if this has been clearly covered. After a bit of searching I simply couldn't find those answers. I'm also quite new to raiding, so excuse me if this is "common knowledge". Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #355 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
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| #356 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Jimad | |||||||||||||
| #357 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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While it is up, it will affect all dot tics and Shadow spells. Note that it will affect all Shadow Bolts that are cast while the debuff is up, including those still traveling to their target when the debuff is removed. ShadowSeer and ISB: The ISB debuff is called Shadow Vulnerability. Shadow Priest's talent Shadow Weaving (which increases damage by 10%) is also called Shadow Vulnerability. To make matters even more confusing, debuffs events are only sent to players who are relatively close to the mob being debuffed. While it is possible to increase the range of damage events, there is no such equivalent for debuff event. This is also why WWS logs are screwy regarding debuffs. Right now ShadowSeer is, in my opinion, the most reliable way of measuring ISBs, as long as you stay relatively close to your target (which I guess is around 25 yards). Any further than that and ShadowSeer simply doesn't receive the information it needs to be accurate. There are a few workarounds possible, but most of them will require other tradeoffs, and I don't think it is worth it. Because of this I've decided to stop working on ShadowSeer until Blizzard fixes their mess of a combat system, which is sheduled for 2.4. | ||||||||||||
| #358 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | deneba |
Demonology spec question - I am a warlock in a raid that is approaching Leo in SSC where I will be the designated warlock tank. I've been demonology in the past so I am comfortable with the change! I understand that a minimum will be soul-linking with a felhunter. Beyond that, I'm not sure how to go.
I have the Void Star Talisman but only 1/5 T5, though hopefully that changes with Leo getting killed! I've currently spec'd 0/41/20 to keep the felguard out. Why? Well I figured that with my new trinket he'd be more useful in raids, however it really does seem that I need the 2-piece T5 bonus for that to happen. Is it reasonable to say that untli I have this bonus, the felguard isn't too useful in SSC and TK fights if I can't guarantee him support from our healers? I guess what I'm wondering is whether it would make more sense to be 0/40/21 to get Ruin and stick with that as my "Leo tanking" spec -until- I get a second T5 piece... at which time I could switch back to 0/41/21 and use the felguard in raids more often. If it helps, I basically only do raids and daily quests. | ||||||||||||
| #359 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
0/40/21 relies on Succubus, don't go there without 2p T5.
My advice: spec Soul Link for learning the fight, and ditch it afterwards. Or get 2p T5 and spec 0/40/21 or x/41/x according to personal taste, that'll allow you to still have Soul Link and offtank. Or get a druid offtank. It's very viable to have just one tank for Leotheras these days, but two will probably help when learning. | ||||||||||||
| #360 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
Soul link is only helpful for healers learning how to deal with a Warlock tank.
Anyway, I would use 1/41/19 (1 point so corruption is more usable), and keep the Felhunter out for tanking. The 2 Piece is very useful to make FG better, but assuming you had a Ret Pally there is no excuse not to have Judgment of Light up. GL with the gloves! | ||||||||||||
| #361 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Jimad |
Is it permissible for me to post a WWS link of a recent Fathom~Lord kill in this thread? My damage output really seems to have taken a nosedive over the past few weeks, and I am truly lost as to why. I'd really like to have a little analysis done on my performance. This "condition" has gotten bad enough to where I am on the verge of voluntarily giving up my raid spot, although I certainly don't want this to happen. I trust the warlock community on EJ, and would really like some guidance.
If this is not the appropriate thread for this, where might I go? | ||||||||||||
| #362 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
WWS for evaluating performance...
Once you already show your gear (via armory etc) I don't really see much use in WWS compared to a video. I mean while WWS can help you improve your DPS since we can compare what you did to what other people did, and for example tell you you weren't casting enough, but nobody can tell you when you weren't casting when you should have or anything like that.
I think a video should show enough of how you screw up, as it easily shows unnescessary DPS downtimes, slow target switching, messing up DoTs (assuming proper addons are being used) etc, which are very hard to impossible to see on WWS. I don't know why noone came up with it before, I suppose making and uploading it is a big deal but it's really the only way to help someone do more dps other than telling him "you're not casting enough shadowbolts" or "work on your gear" or "your DoTs are falling off", which he should be able to see by himself after reading these threads... Note this isn't specific to the above poster but rather to everyone trying to get their DPS improved by posting here... | ||||||||||||
| #363 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
A WWS won't necessarily show whats wrong. Two changes came with 2.3 that will have an affect on your DPS in relationship to others. The first being the coefficient fix for Mages and the second being the removal of the need for /stop casting macros. I know the second one seems kind of silly as all casters should of been using them but trust me, there was a mage in my guild who has been there since the start who never used them and rarely finished in the top 10 on DPS and now with both of those changes and no gear improvements, gets in the top 5 consistently.
I see that your Affliction, has there been a recent change in your raid composition? Addition of another Affliction lock? S Priest? Evaluate any new class additions and see if they are eating up debuff slots. Also get Forte Warlock because I don't think DoTimer shows when your DoT's get knocked off because your over the 40 slot limit. \ Did your Hunters respec Beast Mastery? Has it been a long while since you got loot but others have gotten things recently? | ||||||||||||
| #364 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Kobal |
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I basically pieced together my own spreadsheet from various other spreadsheets floating around these forums, and then went on to refine it. It is far from finished, but the current version can be found here. | ||||||||||||
| #365 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bandoer |
Modeling ISB -
Here is how I model ISB: I count every crit that I do as an additional X damage attributable to me in raid. If each of the charges is eaten up by a 2.5k direct damage spell that is 2000 extra damage. Factors that increase this number is dot ticks. Factors that decrease this are overlapping ISB procs. If charge 1 or charge 2 is eaten by a shadowbolt crit, you "lose" some backend charges. If Charge #1 is eaten by a Ruin crit, you lose the effect of charge #3 and #4. The damage you would have gotten from Charge #2 is made up for by the fact that #1 was a crit. So, Charge 1 getting eaten by a SB crit is a "loss" of 2 charges. Charge 2 equals loss a of 1 charge Charge 3 is a wash Charge 4 is a gain of 1 charge My fudge factoring says to equal out the dot ticks and the loss of charges. It is a huge fudge factor I won't dispute that. Of course I post this to see if this approach could be refined. This modeling is obviously not perfect but what it is does give me is a number for comparing a crit rating against other stats. If I do 3k shadowbolts in raid and damage attibutable to ISB is 2500, that makes 1 crit rating pretty much on par with 1 hit rating. btw - SM/Ruin (40/0/21) is not listed as one of the viable raid specs and I much prefer it to UA with over say 22% crit. | ||||||||||||
| #366 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cronjob |
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If you are gonna run an FG raiding spec try this one.. 07/44/10 - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I run this from time to time I dont have 2 piece but do have voidstar and I sometimes get into a Shadow sissy group which keeps the pet up for sure. There is a lot of pet management invovled but for some fights, especially now that the pet will make an effort to stand behind the target really does shine if you manage the pet correctly. For me the biggest headache it not getting the pet healed but getting him buffed. I have to beg for buffs sometimes although lately it has been better especially since we have two a max of 2 FG locks (self included) so I think they are getting used to it. At first it was horrible and not having him buffed does hurt dps. | ||||||||||||
| #367 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Xelopheris |
40/0/21 only becomes viable after hitcapping and getting a decent amount of crit. But when you do reach that point, 0/21/40 also becomes not only viable, but a better spec than 40/0/21. All you gain from 40/0/21 is instant corruption, improved lifetap, and shadow mastery (as far as raiding goes). 0/21/40 gets 5% more shadow damage, bigger SB coefficient, more crit, improved fel armor, and you can fit in improved healthstones.
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| #368 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bandoer |
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| #369 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
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| #370 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
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Honestly if I was forced to be malediction bitch, I'd choose 40/0/21 over 41/0/20. | ||||||||||||
| #371 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | hellenkeller |
A few quick questions. My guild is currently 5/5 Hyjal and 5/9 BT, yet I get the feeling our warlocks are specced improperly or just do poor dps. In comparing our guilds' WWSes with other guilds at similar progression levels, our warlock dps seems notably behind the other warlocks in those other guilds. I spoke with them today to figure some of it out. 2 of the 3 active raiders are now destro because I kept telling them affliction sucks, and the last one is still affliction. The destros saw an immediate jump in DPS.
We bring 3 locks per night, and two shadow priests. CoE, CoR, and CoS are applied. Should our affliction lock have Malediction? he says it will hurt his personal dps to spec it. I assume the "ideal" raid setup is 2 destros and an afflict with malediction, am I wrong? Can any BT clear warlocks comment on this? | ||||||||||||
| #372 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
I think all those people just starting raiding and seeing a DPS jump when they switch to destruction isn't becuase it's a better spec, especially not for them and their gear level, but rather that they're incapable of putting up dots in the appropriate times while shadowbolt spam is simple enough for them...
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| #373 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | hellenkeller |
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| #374 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Pentamorfi |
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| #375 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Pentamorfi |
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| #376 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
You cast more SB so you crit more. It will only have 3% less crit than a 0/21/40 spec. It's a really good build to stack crit. So you can be the 3-in-1 Shadow embrace, malediction, and ISB bitch. Also it gets a bigger boost from 4/5 T6 and takes less debuff slots. IMO a UA build has no place in end game raiding.
Last edited by rochan : 11/19/07 at 6:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #377 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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After taking analyzing it a bit I have to admit I see no reason for this to be true. It depends on gear levels. I'll add it to the Compendium. Last edited by Arelenda : 11/19/07 at 7:06 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #378 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Tullut |
I have now specced 0/21/40 on my warlock, got 1059 shadow spell dmg unbuffed, 136 spell hit and about 16% crit (21% incl. devastate). I was planning on staying this build for pve as I enjoy to see some crits, but was wondering:
Is it worth it to get some of the spell haste gear from heroic vendor, and using it unless I got alot of other spell haste items? I have off-h atm, and was planning on continuing with bracers next. Unfortunately the off-h is the only spell haste item I got :p | ||||||||||||
| #379 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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With 5 shadow users, that's the equivalent of 13.6% of the average shadow user dps, for three talent points, or roughly the equivalent of 70-80 spellpower per point. For comparison, Fel Aegis gives 10 spellpower per talent point, and most people consider that one decent. Yes, at your progression, the only reason I'd want an affliction warlock over another spec is for raid support. | ||||||||||||
| #380 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Palahniuk |
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I think this notion that "affliction sucks" is rather mistaken as well. I feel that affliction shines in BT/Hyjal-- that threat reduction helps a lot on all the aoeing that must be done if nothing else. I've seen plenty of affliction locks that do very comparable if not better dps than destruction locks. It all depends on the fight. Destro will shine on "stand still and nuke" fights (TG, for instance), and affliction will win by a mile on fights which require dpsing multiple mobs or significant mobility (Archimonde). That being said, I personally raid as 0/21/40 and am in a 5/5, 6/9 guild, so we're roughly equivalent progression wise. We run two affliction and two destruction locks. | ||||||||||||
| #381 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gumibear |
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You don't really want to decide your warlocks' specs on a per-fight basis unless you want to send them to respec several times per raid. I've performed my best on about half of the tier 6 bosses, including Reliquary of Souls, as a Felguard spec. My personal best Archimonde showing was as Affliction. Really, any spec for your Warlocks beyond the 1st one is fine as long as it uses Shadowbolt often enough with a reasonable crit rate for good ISB uptime. Find out what your Warlocks are good at playing as and adjust from there. | ||||||||||||
| #382 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Monet138 |
I have done some testing and have found that the best casting sequence during a boss fight that works for me is:
Immolate, Corruption, UA, CoA, SL Occasionally a couple of them will end at the same time but it doesn't seem to happen often. While those dots are up I either SB or DP/LT as necessary. Under ideal conditions my sequence is usually something like: Imm, Corr, UA, CoA, SL, SB, SB, SB, Imm, LT, LT, Corr, UA, SB, SB, CoA, Imm, SB, SL, LT, Corr, UA, SB, LT, LT, Imm For trash mobs I usually skip Immolate and CoA and adjust accordingly. This usually nets me a very high position on the DM (top 3), especially after boss fights. | ||||||||||||
| #383 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Tullut |
My casting sequence goes like this when I am am affliction: CoA, UA + Corr, Immolate and Siphon Life. Shadow bolt spam untill redot. It have always worked out good and all dots will be up at the same time
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| #384 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | DamnDirtyApe |
Affliction cast rotation
Immolate has a shorter cast time than UA and corruption by 3 seconds. If you refresh UA and corruption at the same time, then immediately afterwards cast Immolate, they will all expire at the same time. When this happens, Immolate should be refreshed first. This allows immolate to roll through UA and corruption, rather than being constantly pushed back by UA and corruption, losing more dps by turning Immolate into an 18 second duration. A timeline would be something like this:
Time: spellcast 0: begin casting UA 1.5: UA completes cast, cast corruption 3: Begin casting Immolate 4.5: Immolate completes cast 6-18: cast siphon life/shadow bolt as necessary 18: begin casting Immolate to allow it to roll through 19.5: all 3 dots expire at the same time, immolate is refreshed immediately. Begin casting UA 21: UA and corruption applied Alternatively if UA and Corruption were refreshed first: 18: begin casting UA 19.5: all 3 dots expire at the same time, UA and corruption refreshed 21: begin casting Immolate 22.5: Immolate refreshed this sequence is repeated every 18 seconds The sequence at 18-21 seconds in the first timeline should only happen once every 90 seconds if you refresh immolate first. You lose 1.5 seconds of corruption and UA time (half a tick for each) every 90 seconds versus the alternative of losing 3 seconds of immolate every 18 seconds. | ||||||||||||
| #385 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | medivh_icy |
Hybrid++
Has anyone tried 30/21/10 build?
On paper it sounds pretty good, +10% from SM, Empowered Corruption, +15% from sacced succy, imp SB and bane, but just curious if someone has actually tried it and what they think? (Sorry if its already posted. I looked but didn't find anything). BTW I have around 1200 SD, +9% hit and +9% crit My Build Thanks! | ||||||||||||
| #386 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #387 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | medivh_icy |
![]() 41/0/15 + 5 -> My build uptil 2 weeks ago. This is a very powerful build. TThe main downside of this is debuff cap and watching all the different dots. Main reasons I left was to seek out something new and hopefully more powerful 0/21/40 -> Fights where you have to move a lot (like VR and Mag), your dps time is much lower which in turn effects your total damage output 7/41/11+2 -> My current build. However, since I don't have 2 T5 pieces, I find it hard to keep my pet alive. Moreover, life tap creates extra pressure on healers (or I have to rely on a SP) My hope with 30/10/21 is to correct the weaknesses of the other builds. Compared to: 41/0/15+5 it will have: -5% crit -No malediction -No Dark Pact -No Imp Buff -No UA (compensated somewhat by SB) +15% Shadow damage 7/41/11+2 -5% crit -15% damage from FG -FG damage -No Soullink (although this is not very viable in pvp without 2 set bonus) +siphon life (for mana regen) +10% damage from SM +15% damage from sacced succy + Empowered corruption 0/21/40 The main thing it will gain here is powerful dots for mobility fights. Maybe it won't work out...and I will waste 30g, but I guess its worth trying. | ||||||||||||
| #388 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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| #389 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
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So the rotation would either be: UA+corruption immolate spam SB immolate(early) UA+corruption(on time) OR UA+corruption spam SB immolate UA+corruption(on time) And afterwards obviously refresh immolate on time as it shouldn't interrupt with your UA+corruption casts. These "rotations" should be more DPS than what you suggested and more DPS than the standard UA+corruption+immolate spam SB repeat, and the one chosen depends if immolate lacking the last tick is more or less DPCT than shadowbolt. Of course I wasn't taking into account the fact shadowbolt isn't exactly a channeled spell that ticks every 0.5s... So that also needs to be somewhat taken into account and possibly making slight adjustments to those "rotations", although they still seem better than what was suggested in the quote. EDIT: While they are more DPS they should only be used if the quoted "rotation" is actually more DPS than the standard UA+corruption immolate spam SB, which really depends what your immolate VS UA/corruption DPS. Last edited by galzohar : 11/20/07 at 8:30 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #390 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
With the changes to Ret Pally and Mage and the recent addition of another shadow priest, now there are debuff issues in my guild. I had to drop Immolate (currently UA build)
With my gear, 40/0/21 from the spreadsheet is only 10 dps less than 41/0/20, plus you use one less debuff slot. | ||||||||||||
| #391 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Sardaukar |
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| #392 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Scud121 |
I took a look at the "Haste" thread, but can't seem to find an answer, many apologies if its in there. Does +haste work on the untalented cast time of the spell?
eg - with 25% Haste (I know, but easy to demonstrate), a Rank 11 Shadowbolt (untalented) casts in 2.25 seconds. However, if you have Bane Rank5, does this drop it to 1.75 Second ((3*0.75)-0.5) or to 1.87 ((3-0.5)*.75). I realise with the new Blizz latency checks of doom, this isn't so important, but I'm still curious - would it also do the same for corruption? as it makes Imp corruption a 4/5 pointer. | ||||||||||||
| #393 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | lurirax |
What would really make this guild uber nice would be if somebody would compile a list with the best gear for the different speccs. Perhaps listing the 3 best item for each slot.
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| #394 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Stangg |
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This is a good tool for finding which items would be best for specific slots, I think it's hard to give a list of the best items because it depends what is in the other slots. So using a tool like the one linked allows the user to weight the values that they need for a specific slot depending on current gear level. | ||||||||||||
| #395 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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So 10% haste off a 3s second Shadow Bolt that's talented to become 2.5s makes it 2.25s instead. (= (3-0.5) * 0.9) It's a 20% difference, so pretty important. Updating the compendium. | ||||||||||||
| #396 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Kobal | |||||||||||||
| #397 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Akj |
T5 4 pc bonus
I won the T5 robe off Kael tonight and was in a dilemma whether to use the gloves for the 4 piece bonus or the studious wraps for raw damage. I did some testing with the 4 pc bonus on Dr.Boom and observed the following.
Casting shadowbolt & immediately following it up with corruption (before sb lands) results in the 1st tick receiving the 10% bonus. With 1389 shadow dmg unbuffed (6/44/11 spec) each tick of corruption did 404 dmg without any shadowbolt casts (2424 dmg total). Using the shadowbolt, corruption, shadowbolt, shadowbolt, shadowbolt, shadowbolt shadowbolt cycle resulted in ticks of 421, 439, 459, 481, 505, 532 (2837 dmg total). A 400ish net dmg increase with no debuffs every 18s does not seem that bad overall. Has anyone else tested this extensively in a raid setting? Is it worthwhile to drop immolate from the rotation to maximize the sb casts? | ||||||||||||
| #398 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Demonpyro |
I have a couple of questions about FR tanking Leotheris. First of all with stackable buffs and FR. If i have 166 fr from gear, +70 from FR aura, +35 from flask of chromatic woners, +25 from GoTW, and 70 from master demonologist by having the felhunter out...does all of this stack just fine with each other. This gives 366 which i believe is max
The other question...does chaos blast proc nether protection. i have seen conflicting reports. | ||||||||||||
| #399 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arveene |
In addition to using lootzor, it may be a good idea to download the dps spreadsheet, enter the relevant info (spec, damage, hit, crit, etc.) and then use the gear spreadsheet also linked in the same thread where you enter the dps values of hit/crit/damage/haste and it'll do a comparison for you.
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| #400 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Rahlar |
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| #401 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Nether protection proccing off Illidan? I'm positive it didn't do this in 2.2 and before. Are you 100% sure it got changed in 2.3? Leotheras was an exception, as far as I know. Capernian does proc it. So does Illidan. They choose new targets. | ||||||||||||
| #402 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Morwen |
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Fire Shield's +39 (talented) is typically overlooked though, it's slightly better than GotW when you can't get the more powerful auras or you need concentration aura instead. Last edited by Morwen : 11/21/07 at 6:23 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #403 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
Capernian will 100% find a new target with NP up, and a few people have posted here or the other thread saying Illidan will act the same.
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| #404 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
From my experience Capernian would just attempt to melee you if NP procs, and will only start casting again when either you /cancelaura or it runs out. But yeah, same effect, not really tankable with nether protection.
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| #405 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | richard |
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/cast Searing Pain and then you spam it. 99% safe! | ||||||||||||
| #406 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | DaveA50 |
I have tanked Capernian with nether protection, and although it was quiet a while ago, all she did was attempt to melee me when it procced.
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| #407 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
That is what I did, nowhere near 99% safe. Not sure if it was the fact that I have higher than "normal" latency (400-500), but I pretty much got close to being melee'd on each of the three attempts and had to go and respec out of it.
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| #408 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bokkie |
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I used the macro mentioned here but found that when the global cooldown was there it would not perform the cancelaura when bashed. Also tried putting the cancelaura in it's own macro on a different button, since it doesn't trigger the global cooldown so you can spam it while casting searing pain. This worked better but is still not 100% so I still recommend speccing out of it if you are the designated tank and don't have farm status yet. | ||||||||||||
| #409 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | deneba |
Thanks for the earlier advice about felguard raiding. I switched to 0/40/21 which I think will be a nice warlock tank spec for someone who doesn't have the 2-piece T5 bonus yet. At least I hope!
Another question - there is a new offhand available for 35 badges of justice. Fetch of the Primal Gods - Fetish of the Primal Gods - Items - World of Warcraft - versus the orb of the souleater, it trades 51 shadow damage for 37 damage, but gains stamina, int and 17 spell haste. I'm trying to decide, for what specs might one or the other be better? I currently have orb of the souleater and am wondering if I should put this offhand on my list of things to get. | ||||||||||||
| #410 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
The real question about NP is, when will it screw you over? Since it only procs on a hit, if the boss only starts cating the next spell after you're hit (assuming NPCs don't cancel spells unless forced to such as when target is out of range or LOS), it'll always see your NP and not cast at you because you're immune. If however he starts casting before the last spell hit you, you have time until he finishes that cast to cancel NP. So it really depends on how the boss' attack actually works.
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| #411 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Bokkie |
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What I noticed when playing around with my macro's is that she would keep casting on me unless one of her spells actually hits on you as immune. So when she 'noticed' that I was immune, she would move in for a melee/arcane blast/explosion (without canceling her spell) and then go back to her fireball routine after that one attack. edit: Without canceling her spell, meaning she'd finish her cast and then move in for a different attack Last edited by Bokkie : 11/23/07 at 7:46 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #412 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
I have a question about refreshing dots:
In theory, without latency, casting the UA > Corr combo with exactly 1.5 seconds remaining on the dots reapplies then right after the last tick. However, when I actually tried to do this, I occasionally overwrote the dot before the last tick, which is obviously a loss of 3 seconds. By contrast, playing it a bit safe and casting UA with 1 second remaining removes this problem, but you guarantee a loss of .5-1 second of the dot. This is what I've been doing. I ask this because I occasionally see players with close to perfect DoT rotations (ie 98 ticks out of a possible 100 in 5 mins of combat time). However, I looked over my latest parse on Gruul (7 min 40 second fight, in theory 153 dot ticks), and the best I managed was 130 ticks on Siphon Life with the remainder in the 120s. I guess there is a bit of movement and other factors in this particular fight, but I feel I should be doing better in the 90% range. | ||||||||||||
| #413 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Valgasha |
Raid Gearing Advice
First of all, my thanks to the OP for this excellent guide. As a newcomer to post-TBC raiding, it has done a lot to catch me up to the current state of Warlocks.
I'm an veteran of the pre-TBC raiding looking to come out of retirement. After playing other characters casually for the months and taking a few long breaks from the game since the expansions release, I made it to 70 on Valgasha a short time ago. Here is a link to his armory: The World of Warcraft Armory I have updated my gear as expediently and efficiently as possible, and looking for advice as to how to advance further. I am interested in solid raiding statistics, and am already hitcapped. I am not interested in remaining Affliction for any longer than is necessary, and would prefer to build toward 0/21/40 ASAP, having played 9/21/21 during the glory days. In addition to general advice and suggestions, I have a few specific questions: 1) I have a fair stock of Heroic Badges. Should I spend these on the Icon of the Silver Crescent, or keep saving for the new 2.3 items? Scryer's Bloodgem won't be replaced in the near future in all likelihood, so I'm essentially undecided between the Icon's spell damage versus the Gift's spell crit. 2) I have access to a Belt of Blasting, should I want it, but I have considered going for the S3 Vindicator's Silk Belt instead; I am aware that there is a minimum stamina threshold for a lot of TBC raids, and that I am critically beneath it. Tips? Finally, here is a short list of my current gearing plans, to allow for gaps to be pointed out or mistakes to be corrected: 1) S3 Vindicator's Silk Bracers, likely socketed with +10 Crit Rating. 2) S1 Gladiator's Warstaff, on the assumption that its hit and crit would be more beneficial to me than the pure +dmg of the Spellblade and Heroic Offhand (which I can also acquire). Whichever I get will have Soulfrost immediately. 3) S3 Vindicator's Silk Belt *or* Belt of Blasting. 4) 60 Heroic Badge cloth gloves. 5) Karazhan reputation ring, when it's an upgrade over the good 'ol BoDD. 6) +12 dmg enchants on both rings. Beyond this, I welcome any further recommendations. My thanks in advance to any/all who get through this and offer some help! Last edited by Valgasha : 11/24/07 at 9:43 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #414 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Well, normally "wut do i gaer???" posts get reported and ignored, but normally they're also horribly written pieces of rubish by people with less brain cells than grammatical errors. As such I am so confused that I shall give my input:
While there are some pieces of BWL gear worth holding on to (I am the proud owner of a Neltharion's Tear), I wouldn't say that the ring, and especially the belt, is one of them. If Belt of Blasting is proving hard to come by on your server, the Girdle of Ruination is a cheaper alternative that's a nice piece of work in itself, plus higher stats. For rings, there are things available at exalted Cenarion Expidition and Scryers with as much damage, and more stats. If you're going destro, Seer's Signet - Items - World of Warcraft is a nice upgrade, and not too much work from where you are if you stay affliction until then. I would say go for the Icon because as your gear improves from raiding you are going to need less and less hit to hit-cap, and you're going to want to have pieces to swap out. The first place it will probably be coming from is the gems in your FSW stuffs, but the Icon is solid and the bloodgem not so much. Your bracers and probably good enough at the moment, I would spend the arena points on the belt, the badges on the gloves and zomg offhandz, and drop for a 15dmg enchant. My personal feeling is that with the S1 gear, 1H + OH is better than the 2H so long as you get a better OH than S1, but your mileage may vary. You don't need the hit right now, except insofar as what you can drop from other slots for it, but the crit... is probably not worth 51 shadow damage =P. Look into the 2.3 OH though. I didn't pay much attention to it for myself as affliction, but with haste it might be an ugprade for destro. If you have badges leftover I would recomend taking a look at the cloaks, followed by the wand. I noticed that you hit-capped... My personal feeling is that hit-capping is overrated, and hit should be computed in terms of average dps gain just like any other stat, but it usually does end up coming ahead, per itemization point, than the other stats. Dig up Leulier's spreadsheet in the (another)Warlock Spreadsheet thread and play around with it, to see what you get out of gem selection. My instinct is that 15 hit rating is ever so slightly inferior to 20 spell damage on gloves. I also prefer to run with subtlety on cloak on the principle that, while every cloak enchant provides a minimal benefit at best to casters, sublety is the one that actually has any effect at all in most situations. | ||||||||||||
| #415 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
Has anybody had experience with the new badge loot? Any opinions on it?
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| #416 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
Well, the gloves are better than t4 or t5 but not t6, the offhand is better than Hydross and equal to Rage if you don't need the hit, the legs aren't as good as t6, and I can't think of any other new badge pve gear.
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| #417 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | richard |
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| #418 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
How is the [Fetish of the Primal Gods] better than [Fathomstone]? The only way I can get it to be better using the spreadsheet and a 0/21/40 spec is to push crit to around 32% (with devastation).
Speaking of haste, has there been any math done WRT ISB uptime and haste vs. crit? | ||||||||||||
| #419 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
The effect of haste on ISB uptime depends more on your raid makeup than other stats. Essentially it makes your crit "count" more since your bolts make up a larger share of the nukes hitting the target. So it potentially is worth something if you're the only destro and you have a handful of shadow priests, but for most raids crit will give more to ISB uptime than haste.
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| #420 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
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| #421 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
With affliction you don't need to compare, you get [Orb of the Soul-Eater] with your heroic badges instead =P. Straight-up damage beats haste and crit.
Haste has no effect on personal ISB uptime if you are the only shadow caster until you start getting one more shadowbolt into the 12 seconds. In a raid setting, the formula is 1-(1-x)^4, where x is the weighted-average shadow crit rate for the rate, with the weighting being how often the caster casts shadowbolt. As is intuitive, haste rating changes that weighting. | ||||||||||||
| #422 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Having red and blue gems for a +damage socket bonus is so great, basically you get 5-6 stamina for "free". The new belt is basically a weaker belt of blasting, the badge cloak is better than the Mulgar cloak and the other items aren't so great. The new trinket is so-so, 47 damage and click of 1750 health that takes away the health gained after 15 seconds; it is decent for Arenas since it works past mortal strike. | ||||||||||||
| #423 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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1 affliction lock, provided CoS w/Malediction, a SB crit rate of 15%, and a SB cast ratio of 0.4 2 destro locks with SB crit rates of 30% and SB cast ratios of 0.85 1 spriest at full burn, casting MB and SWD at every cooldown Given the your model, we have the following SB uptime: x = (0.15*0.4 + 0.3*0.85*2 + 0)/4 = (0.06 + 0.51 + 0)/4 = 0.57/4 = 0.1425 uptime = 1 - (1-x)^4 = 1 - 0.8575^4 = 0.459 ~= 46% uptime Is my execution of the model correct? Is the effect of the spriest properly stated? How would haste compute into the cast ratio? (Note that I'm looking for a general shadow caster formula here because raid composition fluctuates and I like to prepare for different scenarios.) | ||||||||||||
| #424 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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x = (0.15 * (0.4/2.6 / (0.4/2.6 + 2*0.85/2.6 + 0.2/1.6)) + 2 * 0.3 * (0.85/2.6 / (0.4/2.6 + 2*0.85/2.6 + 0.2/1.6)) + 0) = 0.235 So, uptime = 1 - (1-x)^4 = 66% Edit: A generalized form depends upon how many actors you have. Weighted crit is Sumproduct(crit,%share) where %share is (cast_ratio/cast_length) / (sum of all actors' cast_ratio/cast_length). Edit2: Divided by not multiplied by >.> Last edited by Trickykid : 11/27/07 at 2:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #425 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Konomi |
I just downloaded the Lock DPS sheet and I noticed that there is no CoA on the chart, or at least that I can see, there is only CoE. The reason I ask this is because I am currently an Affliction lock and my spell rotation consist of UA>Corr>CoA/CoD(depending on Mob)>SL>SB>SB>LT repeat **watching DoTimer carefully of course**
I was wondering even to a Affliction Lock is it still better in a 10man with me being the only lock to put up CoS/CoE over putting up a CoA to put out the best DPS possible? Here are my stats unbuffed if it helps any.. Shadow Dmg = 1153 Spell Crit = 10.25% Spell Hit = 84 (i have 2 points in Suppression) i know i need more hit as well. Mp5 = 105out / 0in Penetration = 20 Sorry if this was posted on a thread already I spent sometime looking through and found nothing. | ||||||||||||
| #426 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Sidewalk |
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CoE: You only put up CoE if the "extra" damage from the mages would be more then your CoA / CoD damage. CoS: You only put up CoS if the "extra" damage from the sPriests/Locks would be more then your CoA / CoD damage. | ||||||||||||
| #427 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
As far as the spreadsheet goes, if you click on CoE you should get a dropdown menu allowing you to select which curse you are running.
The general wisdom is that if there are two people benefiting from a curse, it's better damage than CoA or CoD. If you have two frost or fire mages, you should run CoE. If you have yourself and another warlock, or shadowpriest, or boomkin, or arcane mage, you should have CoS. If do not have this number of casters (or the number drops below this due to deaths), or if those curses are taken care of, you may or may not want to run CoR, which involves its own barrel of research. In general, CoD > CoA not because of straight damage, but because it costs less global cooldowns to maintain. That is contingent on not getting knocked off, and running to completion; if your raid is tight on debuffs or the boss is low on health switch to CoA. | ||||||||||||
| #428 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Angyarr |
On the topic of Nether Protection, I tested it this week and can say now that Illidan for sure switches targets if you are affected by Nether Protection. Of course /cancelaura works, but you still have a gap and the Shadow Blast is high enough damage to 2 shot anyone.
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| #429 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Fafhrd |
To Konomi:
You need 5/5 Supression for best damage since you've ignored +hit gems for epeen +dmg ones. Add Immolate to your rotation, and Dark Pact. CoA/D is less damage than: CoS, if the raid has 2 shadow damage players (unless you do 2000dps yourself) CoE, if the raid has 2 elemental damage players CoR, the raid has 3-4 physical damage dealers (most calculations adds ~5-6% to the dps each player, depending on boss armor) CoR also help your tank maintaining aggro. The buff part of CoR is negated if someone has 5/5 Improved Demo Shout. Last edited by Fafhrd : 11/28/07 at 5:27 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #430 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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avg_lag = 100ms = 0.1s spriest_nps = 1/5.5 + 1/12 = 0.265 affliction_nps = 0.4 * (1/2.6) = 0.154 destro_nps = 0.85 * (1/2.6) = 0.327 raid_nps = affliction_nps + 2*destro_nps + spriest_nps = 1.073 nps spriest_crit = 0 affliction_crit = 0.15 destro_crit = 0.3 x = affliction_crit * affliction_nps / raid_nps + destro_crit * destro_nps / raid_nps = (affliction_crit * affliction_nps + destro_crit * destro_nps) / raid_nps = (0.15 * 0.154 + 2 * 0.3 * 0.327) / 1.073 = 0.219 / 1.073 = 0.204 1 - (1-x)^4 = 1 - 0.4 = 60% uptime | ||||||||||||
| #431 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
Yep, that's how I model it -- I know there are some eccentricities about how ISB works, but as far as I can tell this is the safest way to go about it.
For the sake of gear-choice, I leave it in the component parts so that I can map haste rating into the equation more easily. Otherwise you'll need to have another equation for dNPS/dHaste. Once you assign all of the different actors and their gear (crit and haste), it's relatively easy to get at least an expected increase in ISB uptime per stat point. Then throw in whatever the raid shadow DPS is and you can include that raid-benefit into "the next stat" table. | ||||||||||||
| #432 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gumibear |
I'm not sure how big a difference this makes, but 5/5 Improved MB is every 7 seconds. 5.5 seconds to cooldown and then 1.5 to cast once the cooldown is finished. The cooldown doesn't start until the cast finishes.
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| #433 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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Thanks for the help, Tricky. You should poke Leulier with something like this to add into The Spreadsheet. Some other random discussion to keep things going in here: at what level of gear should you stop bothering with having the token affliction lock? Obviously, you can't have a full 0/21/40 raid since someone has to run an Imp for the tank (and if you're past that point, optimizing DPS doesn't matter). However, at what point will the raw scaling from 0/21/40 overtake the scaling of UA plus malediction? Is there ever a point? | ||||||||||||
| #434 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | LCN |
On a totally unrelated note, and sorry if it has been discussed already, does [Syphon of the Nathrezim] proc use up ISB charges? I heard a rumor, and remember reading something about it in these forums, but as far as I know people never got into a conclusion whether its doing it in the current version. It seems stupid that propably the best Enhancement offhand (mainhand as well?) at the stage would have such a flaw, or as Blizzard would refer to it; an ability.
If it does, it seems cruel to deny the Shammies from loot, but seeing how much 3 warlocks and 2 shadow priests for example gain from ISB, it'd also be more beneficial dps wise to do so. edit: Having worked my way around the stupid limitations of the search engine here, I found the Shammies in their thread stating that it would NOT eat up the charges. However, the conversation was a stub, and ended pretty much when one person said "lawl it does not!". So some sort of confirmation would be nice. Last edited by LCN : 11/29/07 at 4:00 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #435 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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The compendium already answers this: it depends more on lag, raid setup, player skill and play style then on gear levels. Your mileage will vary. Optimal raid setup has at least one affliction warlock because of malediction, shadow embrace and an imp, regardless of gear. On the subject of scaling: Note that 0/21/40 gets more benefits from upgrades to any stat (damage, hit rating, crit rating, haste rating) than affliction does. | ||||||||||||
| #436 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | sna |
I believe, that for shadow bolt spamming (Had no time to do more math)
1% haste ~= 1% hit if hit<hitcap (Boss fight, three levels higher than level 70 player) Input data:
Formulas:
First calculation: 16% haste rating, 0% hit rating
Second calculation: 0% haste rating, 16% hit rating
But in DPS calculation given by formula DPS = (SBXI + (SDG*SC) ) * FT/MCT * HR / FT, there is one and only factor that has impact on result ( we still talk about comparison 1%hit to 1%haste in the meaning of DPS) the quotient HR/MCT. I'll show you, that ratio HR/MCT (value that Shadow bolt damage is multiplied by) is about the same in n calculations for x Spell haste rating value and y Hit rating value, where x+y = z and x>=0, 0<=y<=16 (translation: ratio will be close to equal for n calculations if only you combine percentage x and y values that their sum always give z) 1) 16% spell haste, 0% hit rating, stats pool = 16 SH = 0.16 HR = 0.83 MCT = 2.5 - (2.5*0.16) = 2.1 Ratio1 = 0.83/2.1 = 0.3952 2) 0% spell haste, 16% hit rating, stats pool = 16 SH = 0 HR = 0.99 MCT = 2.5 - (2.5*0) = 2.5 Ratio2 = 0.99/2.5 = 0.396 3) 8% spell haste, 8%hit rating, stats pool = 16 (by doing this I show, that those values are equal in meaning of dps (rounding to 3 significant digits, rounding to 4 significant digits makes 1%hit = 1%spell haste + 0.001 ) SH = 0.08 HR = 0.91 MCT = 2.5 - (2.5*0.08) = 2.3 Ratio3 = 0.91/2.3 = 0.3956 So, ratio1 ~= ratio2 ~= ratio3. I'm not saying, that this is a proof, as I said at the beginning, I believe, that those two values (Hit Rating and Spell haste) are equal (or close to) in therms of DPS and Shadow bolt spamming. | ||||||||||||
| #437 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Spline |
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MCT = BCT / (1 + SH) Thus, MCT = 2.5 / 1.16 = 2.155 Looking at your HR / MCT ratios: 0.83 / 2.155 = 0.385150812064965197215777262180 0.99 / 2.5 = 0.396 Looks like spell hit wins by a 3.7% margin. You're free to conclude that 1% hit and 1% haste are close to equal in terms of boltspam DPS. However, since 1% hit costs 12.6 item points while 1% haste costs 15.7, the economical choice is clear. | ||||||||||||
| #438 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | sna |
I failed. Didn't noticed I have wrong MCT formula :/
Speaking of economical choice, items with spell haste tend to have slightly higher value of Spell haste than items with hit rating have value of hit rating. I have listed items with Spellhaste using wowhead (epics only) and got 15 of them. On average they have 30.9 Spell haste rating which is 1.9696%. There are 61 Epic items usable by warlocks, with Spell hit. On average they have 18.54 Spell hit which is 1.47%. | ||||||||||||
| #439 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Syphon's proc is basically a 6 second dot (that tics 6 times), so it will not eat imp SB charges, just like Corruption will not. It is the best off-hand and maybe for Orcs getting two 5 expertise buffs may make it the best for MH, but if not Orc then Dragonstrike is best. | ||||||||||||
| #440 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Silverstorm |
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MCT = MIN(1.5, BCT * (1-SH)) His original calculations were correct for pure boltspam DPS. Haste Explanation You're assuming that 1 hit rating = 1 haste rating for itemization points. I haven't seen clear proof that this is the case yet. They do have different conversion ratios, that's been blue-clarified, but what I haven't seen is whether 1 hit = 1 haste on a piece of gear. | ||||||||||||
| #441 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #442 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Haste will be more of a benefit when caster items are made like a few Season 3 melee items (specifically the Rogue gear), putting spell hit, crit, haste, damage, stam and int and sockets all on one piece. Currently the well-itemized haste items is the timed quest ring in ZA, T6 trash drop ring, and the Illidan Staff. | ||||||||||||
| #443 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Kobal |
You forgot the crafted bracers. Not that they are particularly well itemized (only dmg and haste), but since the alternatives suffer the same fate they are probably still the best caster bracers in the game, at least for nuke-heavy builds.
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| #444 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
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Removing Life Tap from a destro lock's life is simply the biggest dps upgrade and at this point it's quite easy, on some fights even possible to give up 1-2 pot cooldowns to destruction potions and still never need to Life Tap. That in turn translates to a huge dps boost that an affli lock can't get because of improved Life Tap and Dark Pact already getting them a lot closer to their max. And for my own experience it's normally 300+ dps diff, going up to 5-600 on a let's say Patchwerk fight where I got to a so so 2380 dps (he has no partial resists). And Malediction can't make up for that difference. On another note, Tried Oomkin + Ele combo on a Gruul kill recently and would like to say I'd never give up batteries for crit, maybe just the resto shaman once spriests get another 2-300 dps boost. 8% lucky extra crit still doesn't come close to always getting 10% more dps time from Life Taps (average I'd say). Last edited by dakalro : 11/30/07 at 8:12 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #445 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Katinsha |
Reply to Dexterus (and our biggest destro promotor Arelenda):
I think you are overestimating the effect your talents have on your dps. I am affliction and my destro colleagues never trounce me on the dps meters, even while I am almost always in the MT group (so no help from others) and we run with an elemental shaman and two spriests most commonly. (At Archimonde at the moment, progression-wise). Consensus is that one affliction warlock and rest 0/21/40 is best raid damage. When looking at warlock damage, you should firstly ignore the damage done by CoD/CoA, since other locks will put up a non-damaging curse, skewing the damage done in favour of the former. Former is often a destro lock. Secondly, destro locks receive more benefit from group buffs such as from the shaman (heroism, mana totem, wrath totem) and shadow priest (vampiric touch). Raid leaders know this and tinker caster groups with destro locks in it. Other locks often provide an imp to a tank group/are placed in a random spot outside the caster group. These buffs highly influence the ability and effectiveness of shadow bolt spamming. Not only for destro, also for affliction. You can't say: "oh but you have imp life tap and dark pact, you don't need it" since affliction actually requires more mana spend per second, seeing dots are mostly instant and bolts take 2.5 seconds. Realise that destro locks in most circustances need (way) more healing to keep spamming shadow bolt. This may or may not be efficient for your raid group on a certain encounter. Like on Kaz'rogal and Naj'entus it seriously cripples you. Destro is just inferior on those healing-intensive fights. Lastly, it simply takes more concentration (and skill! :P) to keep up DoTs and spam shadow bolt than it takes to spam shadow bolt alone. It is possible people get higher results due to the easier game-play destruction offers. When affliction locks seem to underperform, perhaps their dot uptime is low and/or their number of shadow bolts (which should not be lower than 80% of a destro lock). In my opinion, most people see a jump in DPS because the game-play is that much simpler as Destro. Not because it is a hugely superior damage spec. It is better, I won't deny it, but not 400-500 dps with equal gear levels, except at the very high-end, where, you have to agree, dps is not a big issue anymore, since you farm the bosses at that stage. The relevant stages are when you still struggle on them (working on Vashj, Kael, Reliquary of Souls, insert other road-block). Your own game-play (what spells to cast, keeping up most important dots, casting as many bolts as possible, when to life tap/dark pact, how to move, not to die, when to use what consumable, how to choose the best gear, how to tweak your build, etc.) is soo much more important than your talents, that generalizations like this: ![]()
EDIT: I am aware that I have to change my name in the profile or people can't find me in WoW Armory. Recently changed it in-game. EDIT: done Last edited by Katinsha : 11/30/07 at 9:34 AM. Reason: message about my profile | ||||||||||||
| #446 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Dondarion |
Has anyone noticed the shadow resistances of bosses in ZA is somewhat high?
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| #447 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Benafflock | |||||||||||||
| #448 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
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The dps difference is there, especially at this stage since dps race is pretty much all that's left for fun, no wipes to learn stuff, no more need to grind or w/e. And when Affliction is lacking regen, I simply get your life tap time in extra dps by default. Add the possibility of using 1-2 destro pots a fight, on the side of 1-2 mana pots and it all adds up. At this point you simply relax, perform whatever you need to easilly since you've done it so many times and just roll over the dps meters. ![]()
I'm sorry to say but you didn't read my post carefully ... I DON'T Life Tap, that's the whole point, the entire empty mana bar in 1 minute issue is simply gone, no more extra healing, no need to LT, DP, anything; and that gives a huge boost in dps that Affli already has part of it, through DP and Imp LT. As for group buffs, Resto shaman and shadow priest are the best buffs, crit doesn't do much in terms of reliability of dps. It is my opinion that you should first increase your highest reliable dps then go for the lucky part with crit. I'd rather leave ele shaman and moonkin to mages, they actually have a lot more benefit from those than locks in terms of reliability of dps. And when difference is 600 dps I somehow doubt it's CoD doing it. I've been affli myself and I love it but it just doesn't look in any way shape or form capable of even touching destro in terms of damage. I've been on the damage meters at start kinda behind the same lock that now is still affli. And even though he isn't quite affli geared (you know, better crit is still more ISB uptime and the SPriests even screamed at me for having fun with Incinerate on a trash mob ) I really doubt he's doing anything wrong in terms of maximizing his dps. I've topped so far every fight but Anetheron and Azgalor, not every time but enough to know I can do it. And on those it's not gonna be locks topping them if melee has anything to say and casters have to kill infernals. | ||||||||||||
| #449 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Katinsha |
Realised it wasn't really a reply to your post, as more in general against the many people simply calling affliction as dead on these boards. So, don't feel attacked...
I do however like to check out the WWS from you before switching compared to after you switched. 600 DPS difference is huge, I like to see how this was made possible. | ||||||||||||
| #450 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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As gear improves, 21/40 continues to separate from the others. I am on the low-end of gear for locks on this forum, so for most that difference is more pronounced. While you can still say affliction CAN do respectable DPS if played correctly, you're on a board with people who are looking for ways to squeeze an extra 10 dps out of their lock. So if a build is even only slightly inferior, it won't garner a lot of support. | ||||||||||||
| #451 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
Well, I've been gone for a week (AD-EU real life meet) and now this.
First of all: haste calculations To get more reasonable results, you should incorporate some kind of mana consumption rate. Life Tap causes global cooldowns and therefore lowers your dps. E.g. If you need to tap once per 4 bolts, then you need to add 1.5s per 4 bolts to your casting time when calculating sustained damage. total_casting_time = base_casting_time / (1 + haste_rating / 1577) + 1.5s / shadowbolts_per_tap Note that how much mana you get depends on your spell power (80% coefficient), and Shadow Bolt cost can be talented to a 5% reduction. Second: I've had more than enough of the spec jyhad. Some people like affliction. Some people like demonology. Some people like the 30/21/10 spec. Each and every one of these specs can top a raid's damage meter, and they can be fun to play and require skill to perform optimally. These are all facts. Debating without solid evidence is very counterproductive and against the spirit of this board. Due to the nature of these specs (all have a different playstyle), objective results are almost impossible to get. I've already went as far as to list some specs that I don't particularly think are raid viable (destro fire, for example) to avoid bruising egos. The compendium mentions the relevant debate. I will leave it at that. Third: To the warlock that claims not to use Life Tap: I'm very interested in seeing how you can keep up good dps without using it. Can you elaborate? I tend to go out of mana in less than two minutes. Mana potions are spent in less than half a minute. Am I missing something? (was edited shortly after posting for clarity, resulting in a small crossquote) Last edited by Arelenda : 11/30/07 at 4:06 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #452 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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Also, do not discount the extra crit. One of detro's primary goals is increasing ISB uptime. Crit helps you do that. Checking assessment post most raids, crits make up about 40-50% of my damage done with SB. Also, if you can guarantee the ele shaman, you can pick up gear w/o hit (or dump gems with it) to grab more damage, a very good trade-off. Assuming perfect itemization, that 4% hit you drop could be another 50-60 damage or another 2-3% crit. ![]()
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This still doesn't change the fact that destro does scale better and that past a certain point, is doing more damage. Even when you give the affliction locks all these benefits, they cannot catch up, as they just don't scale as well. Since you have limited buff slots, you use them where they benefit the raid the most. ![]()
The only situations I've run into where this was a major liability (i.e., holding up the encounter) was when I was tanking T5 stuff. The extra healing stress does matter for Leo or Capernian. ![]()
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| #453 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
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| #454 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
Even with an Ele Shm and Spriest at some point your going to have to use LT to maintain top DPS. Other than stacking Int and saccing a lot of everything else I see no way for this to be possible and top meters.
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| #455 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
If you paid attention to what I wrote you'd see, good spriest + RESTO shaman + mana pots (acquired and required addiction for this). Sometimes, if spriest gets nice dps I can even skip a mana pot. In a 5 min fight, no Life Taps, no stat stacking, sacced succu ofc. Ele shaman ... never tbh, resto seems way better as support for locks.
And we have a weird-ish setup that started with our all out on haste shaman. He always gets spriest. Since then caster groups (2x) are spriest + resto shaman + casters, rarely a healer among those or on some, few fights, healers get in. So yeah, on most of the fights, if I'm in range of the Mana Tide/Mana Spring, I don't need to LT. And all this is pretty much dependant on how good your shadow priests' dps is, the better they do the less LT you need. | ||||||||||||
| #456 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
You may be getting by without Tapping using an abnormal group and possibly suboptimal gear with regen stats, but you would do more damage sacing Succy and Life Tapping.
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| #457 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
Why abnormal, 5k mana return from shaman helps a lot on top of the ~5k from pots and whatever the spriest can squeeze out.
And re-reading my previous post I should have probably said I've only consistently managed to go without LTs on 3 T6 fights and Patchwerk, where spriests get a prety nice boost in dps due to no partial resists. That's Naj, Teron and Rage, but it's getting there, many of the other fights actually have movement you need to do so you get no loss from LT and in any case the shadow priests won't have the required regen. Didn't quite intend to make it sound like I completely removed LT from my bars just came out wrong. As for who gets shadow priests ... I saw mages get a much larger return from having 8% crit rather than the extra regen. And with seeing a restro druid use his offspec gear for moonkin, not even full +dmg and getting 1700 dps, I can't say what I used to ... that I don't like moonkins, they simply seem to work in the right hands. Not top dps but certainly close. But why shouldn't I get shadow priest? Only ones left out are usually 1-2 casters (affli lock + maybe another one, varies, including myself) and the hunter who gets the 2nd feral in the odd group. Last edited by dakalro : 11/30/07 at 8:16 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #458 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Furio |
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Rough Calculations for Mp5: Gear: 0 Mp5 Consumables: 0 Mp5 (no DPS consumables) Demonic Sac: 0 Mp5 (Succubus sacrificed) SP: 325 Mp5 (assumes 1,300 DPS SP) Mana Spring Totem: 72.5 Mp5 (assumes 5/5 Restorative Totems and T4 bonus: ticks for 29 every 2 sec) BoW: 49.2 Mp5 (assumes 2/2 Imp BoW) Mana Tide: 40 Mp5 (assumes 10,000 raid buffed mana pool) Super Mana Potion: 100 Mp5 (assumes average mana return) Total: 586.7 Mp5 Shadow Bolt: -798 Mp5 (assumes 5/5 Cataclysm and 0 haste rating) Net: -211.3 Mp5 With the assumed 10,000 raid buffed mana pool, your total time spamming solely Shadow Bolt is a paltry 236.6 seconds of casting (94 Shadow Bolts). [Note: With 0 Mp5 and a 10k mana pool, you will be oom from SB spam after 63 seconds.] Dakalro, initially I was skeptical that you can DPS without Life Tap, but after doing (and re-doing) some basic mana regen math, four minutes without a Life Tap is feasible, although it does group compositions that may be sub-optimal for overall raid DPS. Edit: In the time it took me to post this you posted two clarification posts. Still, your clarifications do not change any assumptions from this post (and I even grant you a larger raid buffed mana pool than you likely have). In one of your clarification posts you claim no life tapping over a 5 minute fight. If that's true, then you are not continuously casting (as the Mp5 math above proves). Edit 2: Fixed SP Mp5 (can't believe I messed that up) and adjusted other values based on the replies from Dakalro. Conclusions changed drastically. Still, though, shows that Life Tapping is required on all but the shortest fights. Last edited by Furio : 11/30/07 at 9:07 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #459 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
Unless I'm completely blind I didn't LT here . Ignore the rest of the spells cast, it was fooling around, an almost wipe and I died only a couple of seconds before boss, forgot to CoD after the 2nd one and overall not so awesome when all you get is "Aggro from Shadowy Construct" with 4-5 around you . True, kind of short fight, will try and find an older one if I still kept the log.
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| #460 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
Shadow priest returns 5% of damage, 1200 DPS * 5 seconds * 0.05 = 300 mp5, not 60.
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| #461 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
It doesn't have to put you on 0 mana usage, just enough to keep you going for the length of the fight though. Then there's this where I ended up with way more mana than I needed, around 60% or so after 3 min.
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| #462 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
So... to go without LT (with 2.5s bolt and no curses...):
base_mana + mp5*fight_length/5 = fight_length*399/2.5 mp5 necessary = 798 - 5 * base_mana / fight_length or fight_length possible with no LT = 5 * base_mana / (798 - mp5) | ||||||||||||
| #463 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Furio |
/boggle I can't believe I neglected a factor of 5. Above post is edited with correct number and a drastically different conclusion. Still, though, the fact remains that Life Tap remains necessary for most fights (as most fights last longer than four minutes) even if you happen to be in a mana regen party.
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| #464 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roywyn |
How much extra damage is one charge of Shadow Vulnerability worth?
If I'm out of mana and everything is on cooldown, I can either wand or lie down (as a mage or whoever really). Now the last option doesn't feel very satisfying, especially when a boss is on very low health. So, how does wanding (1.5s speed, 177 base DPS wand, shadow damage) compare to just standing around? How much is one charge of shadow vulnerabilty worth in a typical raid setting? Bear in mind that all endgamge wands are 1.5s shadow wands, non-shadow wands are from arena (1.9s, fire) or under 100 DPS, and the slower wands regenerate less mana from JoW. Not wanding also would regain no mana from JoW. So, you see it's all pretty complicated, so I'd love to obtain a figure on the value of one Shadow Vulnerability charge to work with. | ||||||||||||
| #465 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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It also depends heavily on the fight and amount of shadow users. The kind of fight where you go oom is typically going to be a boss fight, so let's assume that. In my experience, ShadowSeer has recorded values of about 1500-2000 added damage per crit with around 6-7 shadow users fighting a boss, on the rare occasion where I could get what I consider reliable figures. One could very roughly estimate that a charge is worth 400 on average in that raid. Even if we halved this, wanding with a shadow wand seems to be very ineffective. Very low shadow damage hits every 1.5seconds are the Warlock's worst nightmare, and the reason I recommend not using Lash of Pain on a Succubus. Intuitively, I'd shy away from anything that reduces Shadow Priest dps. Almost 25% (=5x5%) of their damage done goes to mana starved people in a long fight. For optimal results, make a "swap to spirit weapon and non-shadow wand and start wanding" macro. This would allow you to benefit from spirit, non-shadow damage, and JoW. The only wand that has high dps and doesn't do shadow damage is [Merciless Gladiator's Touch of Defeat] and it's cheaper younger brother [Gladiator's Touch of Defeat], according to wowhead. You might still have a pre-2.3 Evocation staff lying around. One should be realistic, though. We're talking low numbers in a small portion of a long fight, it'd be very hard to measure. Obtaining a pvp wand for the sole purpose of increasing your raid dps contribution when wanding is pushing it quite far. But then again, that's what these forums are for. If you really want to do your own research, have a melee person (like a MT) run ShadowSeer, they'll be producing reliable data about ISB damage contribution per crit in your raid. I haven't tested this in a while myself, but it ought to still work in 2.3. Last edited by Arelenda : 11/30/07 at 11:56 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #466 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
It's not very standard from raid to raid because it varies by composition, but it's relatively easy to model: recalculate the ISB uptime adding in another "caster" with an effective 1.5s cast time and 0% ISB proc rate. Use the drop in ISB uptime to see how your shadow caster dps changes. My guess is, it will tank. Like, really bad. 1.5s is fast compared to cast speeds so you're basically casting as much as two destro warlocks, essentially halving their crit rate for ISB uptime models. If you have 5 shadow casters doing 1000 pre-ISB damage each, and knock the ISB uptime by 20% absolute (not unreasonable), you just reduced the raid damage by about 200 dps, or 300 per wand hit. I have yet to see any 200 dps wands. Note that this is dps, not per-charge; in a 60%-uptime model, each hit has a 3/5 chance of using a charge so each that does use a charge is 5/3 the damage of the average case, meaning 500 damage per wand hit.
In a bizzare counterintuitive twist of fate, this may actually be worse for your personal regen. Shadow preists doing less damage means you get less mana. I don't think the actual gain is comparable to JoW in any way shape or form but your group members will be angry with you if you made them go out of mana faster. I recomend getting a non-shadow wand for actual JoW wanding. Preferably one as fast as you can find. Avoid nature damage wands too if you have enhancement shamans, for the same reason: 1k Lightning bolt > 50 wand hit. Also, never ever ever wand in threat-capped fights ever, ever. Every non-subtletied point of damage that you do is 1.1 to 1.4 points of subtletied damage you could have done instead to reach the same threat-cap, meaning you just shot yourself in the foot by 10-40% depending on spec. | ||||||||||||
| #467 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roywyn |
Thanks a lot for the info.
I know my fair share about things, and that especially shadow damage multipliers have a high impact on raid performance due to shadow priest mechanics. I rarely have to resort to wanding, and always grab my old Evocation staff for that. Yet, there are situations when SPs go to healers, Evocation gets interrupted by damage after 1 tick (yay for 1.5k instead of 9k mana back) or we have to AoE or the fights are long. Also, I have at least 10 different wands that deal shadow damage, with 1.5s speed or slower, with up to 184 DPS. And one 1.3s wand with nature damage (stormstrike + poison/earth shock) and 62 DPS. I could get a 167 to 198 DPS fire wand at 1.9s speed from arenas, and just saw the 1.3s 96 DPS fire wand from Sporeggar. Oh, and 200 DPS wands sound quite realistic. Take 184 DPS base (BT wands), -5% from partial resists, -5% from full resists, +10% from 20% crit (wands are affected by spell hit/crit on gear, has been tested) and add 5% misery, 10% shadow weaving, 10% curse of shadows and you're at 233 DPS before ISB debuffs. Fire mages have an effective efficiency of ~8 DPM, meaning that 1 extra mana when OOM translates to 8 extra damage. (The mana efficiency as damage/manacost is higher, ~14 DPM, but that's not what matters here.) So, the mana from JoW yields about 280 damage, compared to standing still and not doing anything. Back to the drawing board, thanks for your help! | ||||||||||||
| #468 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
Speaking of Affliction and its utility - has anyone come up with the threshold that makes a Affliction/Ruin build out-DPS a standard UA build for personal DPS? Then we would factor in that a Affliction/Ruin build with a decent amount of crit (which one would have at the BT/Hyjal level) would be increasing ISB uptime significantly more than a UA build would.
All in all, without any real evidence, it seems to me that such a build at higher gear levels could be quite a good substitute for the "token UA Warlock" - it does provide all the utility (SE, BP and Mal) while increasing ISB uptime and at higher gear level possibly doing more DPS? However, as I said, I haven't really done any maths on that, and as such I was wondering if anyone else was curious enough as to do a bit of calculation on the subject. | ||||||||||||
| #469 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
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| #470 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Either way, once you have some Tier 6 you likely will at least break even. | ||||||||||||
| #471 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
What would this build look like? Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft ?
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| #472 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Aphex- |
Why would you have Imp CoA and Malediction in the same build assuming you're going to put up CoS in a raid?
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| #473 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
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I guess the main point of my question was to see if taking two points out of Contagion was the best place in order to get SE, Mal, and Ruin. | ||||||||||||
| #474 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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imp CoA is not useless, as you spam Agony on trash. Not a big deal, though. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/02/07 at 9:15 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #475 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | kaib |
With that spec you are pretty much only using CoE/CoS, Corruption and Shadow Bolt. SL is ok in fights where the healing helps, but otherwise just casting sbolt and keeping Cor up wins. I also removed points out of Contagion and there's no other option really. All the higher tier stuff is locked in. You need 7 points in grim reach/nightfall/emp corruption, then 6 in SL/SE and 5 in SM. That leaves you with 7 points for the last two reachable tiers. Three in Malediction are a must (only reason for this spec, 21/40 is just more dps). So you can go with 4 in Contagion and 0 in Dark Pact or 3/1. I'd never give up Dark Pact for 1% Corruption/Seed damage. Maybe if there's a boss fight where seed dmg actually matters, but right now there isn't.
In the end it is still a debuff bitch spec, you cannot compete with 21/40 in any way. However with a certain amount of gear it's better then full affliction and after all one warlock should have SE/Malediction for any non-farm stuff and I'd much rather be malediction/Ruin then full affliction. Other then that with a certain amount of crit your dps is just better, you also buff raid dps more by casting more sbolts and use up less debuff slots. Plus I really like having both destructive reach and Intensity. Spell pushbacks suck. While using that spec I had 4/5 in Fel Concentration instead of imp agony/amplify curse as I was using CoS all the time anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #476 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roaminggnome |
A question regarding the Affliction "classic spec"
Is there a specific reason why an affliction warlock would not sacrifice 2 points in Demonic Embrace and pick up 2/2 Destructive Reach? It seems somewhat counterintuitive to have Grim Reach for your DoTs and still be forced to stand closer to a boss to keep your shadowbolt spam going. Also, the threat reduction on those shadowbolts can only be a good thing. More stamina is great of course, but it's hardly a limiting factor for dps, given the large amounts of it present on our gear anyway, yes? Anyway, even though I am very much a new and somewhat casual raider, I consider maximizing my personal effectiveness to be important. Could somebody give me some feedback on this?
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| #477 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Specs listed aren't set in stone, obviously. Destructive Reach does beat stamina in most fights. I'll fix it. Grim Reach tends to be more valuable since you actually cycle through possible targets more often with dots. Shadow Bolts will usually be directed on a single target. | ||||||||||||
| #478 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
It's very frustrating to have range on one set of spells but not on the other when you use both on the same targets. I definitely recommend picking up both or neither if you are Affliction.
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| #479 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roaminggnome |
This is a good point. Grim Reach is certainly not mandatory for every fight. The conflict I noted is if you have one but not the other, but I didn't mention that having neither resolves the conflict just as effectively as having both.
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| #480 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | lavis |
I've always wondered about 40/0/21 spec it definitely requires some nice gear to pull off and would be a interesting spec for a lock first entering bt/hyjal with 4 piece T5 being that you really only use a rotation like CoS > Corruption > SB x7 > Corruption etc.
Does anyone have experience with this spec? And how much DPS could you push out on a fight like Teron Gorefeind where you didn't get ghosted? I really would like to do some theorycrafting on this one! Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #481 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
I have played 40/0/21, it is a great spec once you have around 20% crit (so 25 with devestation) and 1400 damage and as a plus you use one less debuff slot.
You could do 38/2/21 to get imp imp and/or imp HS, since instant Howl isn't a raiding talent. | ||||||||||||
| #482 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | lavis |
Edit: oops double post lag o.0
Thanks for the info. | ||||||||||||
| #483 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
Assuming you want SE, Mal, Ruin and 2/3 Imp Imp, you wouldn't be able to drop Howl, more like Reach or something, right?
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| #484 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | sappari |
Leotheras and Nether prot
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edit: just tanked him again and doesn't proc any more. But I'm sure prior to 2.3 he did. The other lock in my guild tanked too for a while and he's the one that initially tried it. Last edited by sappari : 12/04/07 at 11:11 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #485 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #486 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
I think he's saying that he procs nether protection, but he doesn't switch targets when you have the buff on you.
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| #487 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | kaib |
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It seems to me it should work like a straight shadow dmg attack and any dual wielding melee dps would clear up ISB procs on the mobs instantly for the duration of the weapon proc. talking about Syphon of the Nathrezim ( Syphon of the Nathrezim - Items - World of Warcraft ) here. | ||||||||||||
| #488 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
Alright, I've been an affliction lock since TBC came out first for DPS purposes and lately for raid utility purposes but I am finally going to be able to respec destro since we recently picked up a new lock that is utility specced. I have a few questions for the veteran 21/40's out there:
1. Reguarding spec, is 5/5 Cataclysm better than 5/5 Imp Immolate / Emberstorm? I know eventually immolate becomes obsolete, but I'm not at that level of shadow damage yet - and I always open with curse/immo/corr to give the tank a little room to build threat anyway. Also, I see the default build having 3/3 nether protection - how useful is this in MH/BT raiding? I can imagine it being pretty nice, but is it worth not having the point to buff immolate? 2. Darkmoon Card: Crusade - how is this for destro? Since I'll be casting CoD, I won't have be able to just recurse to keep it stacked. I was about to buy one (have a guy willing to sell a premade deck) for affliction, but is it worth it as destro? FYI the two destro trinkets I would use right now would be Scryer's Blood Gem (until I can hit cap without it) and the 40 crit rating battlemasters trinket (don't have a sextant, lacking a little crit since I've been Aff so long). 3. Mana Pots. How often do you use these? Chug on CD? Only on really healing intensive fights/emergencies where you can't tap? Somewhere in between? My guilds healing is not much of an issue, I'm not too worried about straining them with tapping. Thanks for any advice, I read as much of the thread as I could really sorry if any of this is repeated. | ||||||||||||
| #489 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Kyth |
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3/3 nether protection is more because there's nothing else to spend the points on unless you're buffing fire spells. | ||||||||||||
| #490 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | kaib |
You need to take cataclysm. It makes quite a difference in the long run. Nether Prot is ok, but nothing to be excited about. It's somewhat useful at teron and I imagine you can get a lucky proc on first rain of fire hit at azgalor and then don't take an additional tick, but that's about it. Archimonde's doomfire completely ignores nether prot, won't proc of the dot at least. Or I was terribly unlucky last week, but I think chances are it won't proc. :P
The fire talents are all pretty bad if you do not plan to do searing pain tanking, but as you consider taking nether prot, I suppose you do not. Immolate is just fairly useless. Even if sbolt is a bit less dmg, ISB still makes it worth casting it instead. And no the pull there should be a misdirectoin in 25 men raids, so it's not bad really. Sometimes I just open with curse, corruption (good old cast time) and then sbolt. That's pretty safe. For pots, I don't use any non-AV mark ones on farming content. If you want to maximize your dps, you gotta drink obviously, makes quite a big difference. | ||||||||||||
| #491 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Crusade is one of the best trinkets available. 80 spellpower is pretty impressive. Mana pots: If healing isn't really tight, a mana pot gains you less than two Life Taps worth, that's 3 seconds of dps, or 3000 damage if you do 1000dps. If healing IS tight, and they can't spare a single heal, then Rejuvs will pay off more. I use mad alchemist pots, they're identical to rejuvs (alchemists only). I tend to try and keep my pots off cooldown for emergencies instead: rejuv pot+healthstone (plus death coil, if really needed) is a nice panic button. Don't focus on crit only, though. If you have other spellpower trinkets (like the Icon of the Silver Crescent) you probably want to use that instead. Roughly crit rating and damage give you about equal gains, but it depends a whole lot on the amount of shadow users in the raid. | ||||||||||||
| #492 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
Thanks a lot for the replies, and yeah I have the icon/quags eye (the two I used as affliction) but I kind of feel I need the crit from the BM trinket since with it I am still only at ~19 crit unbuffed/~24 counting dev (I have 0 crit gems and I'm still using 2 pieces of FSW). I know damage is > crit, I just think you need a decent amount of crit to really benefit from ruin and contribute a respectable amount of ISB uptime.
And is immolate really that useless due to ISB? I know SB scales better and gets bonuses from SW/ISB where Immo doesn't, but shadowseer still has my damage per casting time on immo a good bit higher than SB so I figured it would still be worth it for now. | ||||||||||||
| #493 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
I just switched from affliction to destro at a gear level a bit under what the common suggestion is:
The World of Warcraft Armory Tack of a belt of blasting and this is what I probably will raid with on Tuesday. Will report results. Also, I think the compendium could use some analysis on what a meta socket is worth. For example, I'm debating whether to pick up my tier 5 or the Grand Engineer Helm. Or tier 4 v Spellstrike. Last edited by Krazen : 12/03/07 at 12:15 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #494 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Masafumi |
Last raid I obtained my second T5 part so I have the 2/5 bonus now. This week was / is our last SSC and TK raid and from now on we gonna focus on BT en MH. So it's time to get rid of Affliction since it's getting boring and to try something else.
A fellow warlock in our guild is currently raiding with his felguard and kinda beating the shit out of everyone. He wears the Solarian trinket and got the T5 bonus aswell. I do not have the trinket but would love to raid with it myself. So would it be worth speccing felguard with a build like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft ? I'm open for some tweaks aswell. Armory is bugged but my current stats with the gear I will wear are 13/14% hit, 18% crit and around 1150 spelldamage, everything is without talents. Otherwise I'll spec 21/40 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Thanks in advance | ||||||||||||
| #495 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Zinaida |
About immolate usage as 0/21/40: I see a lot of people saying how much immolate sucks, but from playing with the spreadsheet it seems that immolate is only a dps loss at unattainable gear levels or if your shadow damage is significantly higher than your fire damage. However someone talked about shadow bolt being better due to increased ISB uptime. At what sort of raidbuffed damage would you stop using immolate? Or perhaps i've missed something obvious.
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| #496 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
Most of the immolate>SB calculations assume 100% uptime of the mage scorch debuff, 5/5 emberstorm, 5/5 imp immolate, and very little gap between recasts of immolate. One of these conditions failing will usually put immolate on the same DPCT as SB. My empirical evidence found that by Lurker, it just wasn't worth casting (net DPS loss of around 10-20) and it has only gotten worse from there. After demonstrating to myself immolate was no longer worth it, I dropped imp immo and conflag (which I miss a lot) for cataclysm.
If you're going to tank anything as a warlock, get emberstorm over NP. Capernian and Illidian's bolts do proc it and will wipe the raid, no matter your /cancelaura macros. While Leo's bolts do not proc it, emberstorm gets you more TPS, which is better for there anyway. [0] If you're not tanking things, then feel free to pickup the situational utility of NP. [0] While Imp Searing Pain is probably a better place to spend the points (10% vs. 8% more damage), I'm more of a fan of guaranteed better TPS than risking my pickups on crits. Of course, a well-timed doom or shadowburn beats all, but sometimes those aren't an option. | ||||||||||||
| #497 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | SSJones |
Immolate is a minor DPS loss at my gear level if you don't have 5/5 Emberstorm and Improved Immolate. That's according to the leulier spreadsheet. If you do have improved immolate and emberstorm, it's a very minor DPS gain. That being at 1130 Shadow, 993 fire damage, 23% crit non raid buffed. I got from 1174 without immolate to 1157 with.
With 5/5 in both fire talents, I go to 1187 according to the spreadsheet for a gain of 13 dps. Also note that immolate at 1.5 second cast doesn't benefit from spell haste, where shadowbolt sees very noticable gains from spell haste, and the numbers above are with 4.75% (75 haste rating). Without haste rating, It's 1130 for pure shadow without Immo, 1119 for pure shadow with Immo, and 1150 for 5/5's with Immo. Whether or not speccing into Immolate actually makes that 1-2% difference worth it for you probably depends more on taste and playstyle than anything else. That's at a T4/5 gear equiv. As you progress further towards T6, shadowbolt scales better with spellhaste. Also scales better with crit? I forget if the dot percentage of Immolate gets a bonus from crits. I imagine the gap continues to narrow there if it does not.. Also the 4 piece T6 at a 6% gain for shadowbolt is, in my opinion, the final nail in the coffin for Immolate regardless of destruction talent choices. | ||||||||||||
| #498 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ zepi |
I fail to see how this would affect things too much. Either Immolate is more damage per cast-time than SB or it's not.
If it is more (which is assumed all the time, or whole Immolate idea is dead anyway) then you'll get DPS-boost every time you cast Immolate instead of Shadow Bolt assuming you don't overlap Immolation dots. You can easily leave 1.5sec gaps after Immolate dots and gain 90% of the DPS boost from 100% uptime if that makes it castable without wasting any SB castingtime. So: It's not necessary to have 100% uptime on immolate for it to be a DPS boost over SB, the only and sole condition is that (Immolation initial damage + dot damage over 1.5sec - manaefficiency drawback - Imp. SB effect reduction) has to be greater or equal to (SB damage * 1.5/2.5) in order for Immolate to be usable without drawbacks. This ofcourse might require imp. scorches etc. In addition, Immolate should be DPS boost in movement fights compared to pure SB spam. As mentioned by others, haste scaling and +crit should favor SB over Immo. | ||||||||||||
| #499 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | SSJones |
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#1 - When you need to move, you do not already have an Immolate up so you aren't clipping the dots. #2 - You have 1.5 seconds before you need to move, but not 2.5 seconds. If these two aren't true, then it's back to simple Damage per Cast Time as you mentioned earlier. In most fights that you might think of as 'movement' fights I have not often felt I could reactively cast an Immolate instead of a Shadowbolt and be gaining much. At least in the fights I have encountered so far. On Void Reaver for instance, I used to cast Immolate just before orb dodging, but found I can really just cast a shadowbolt as well and then move without issue. I still use Immolate on targets moving away from me sometimes due to the faster cast time (Supremus, Thaladred) if I am worried about them moving out of range before a shadowbolt would finish. | ||||||||||||
| #500 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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| #501 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
The DPS boost of immolate from movement fights is basically a function of how much larger a fraction of your cast order it can become as a result of your cast order becoming sparse with respect to time. Jones, your scenario is that which maximizes the benefit from immolate, but it isn't the only case where you'll see an increase. You always have a cap on the number of immolates you can cast: 1 per 15 seconds. If movement cuts the number of shadowbolts you can throw in between in half, then the proportion of your damage that is immolate doubles. If immolate has a higher DPCT, which it tends to except in extreme cases, then the increase it has on your dps, as a percent, roughly doubles in the above situation. What you describe is what it requires for immolate to become better when the DPCT is lower, because it's comparing an immolate to no shadowbolt rather than 60% of a shadowbolt.
Of course, with immolate there's still the ISB uptime problem. It's up to you to figure out on your own what this reduction in SB cast time measure ends up being in terms of raid ISB... I have a feeling it's not much because ISB uptime is relatively robust to initial conditions, but if it's close you should be concerned. | ||||||||||||
| #502 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #503 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roaminggnome |
I believe the issue is that, while Immolate may have a better pure damage per cast time than Shadow Bolt, it doesn't have a chance to proc the ISB debuff. This is difficult to quantify, but it is certainly significant both for your own dps and for the dps of the raid.
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| #504 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
Regardless whether Immolate is a dps increase, not using or using it will only make a few dps difference unless you have Tier 5+ gear as Destro then it starts to drop your dps since you have less imp SB uptime and you don't dip into the synergy of imp sb, CoS, and Shadow weaving. As Affliction it is decent anytime.
At some Tier 6 level with another Lock and 2-3 Shadow Priests in the raid, the only time I have cast it (as affliction spec) is on RoS phase 2, because I can't cast SB due to pushback. As destro I used to cast it at the start of the boss fight so I wouldn't get a huge crit and pull aggro. The spreadsheet models it pretty good if pay attention to OOM time, DoT gap time, and raid buffs. | ||||||||||||
| #505 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | SSJones |
Well, I just noticed that when I plug my fully raid buffed numbers into the spreadsheet, it tells me that using Immo is a 30dps loss for me.... yet Immo is still higher DPCT than shadowbolt. I'm no math major, nor an excel expert, but this seems counter-intuitive to me and I cannot figure out why that would be the case.
As far as I can tell, the spreadsheet appears to be properly taking haste into account for the effective cast time? | ||||||||||||
| #506 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
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| #507 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Mind you, all factors are needed (talents, and both debuffs) for Immo to come out on top. Leave them out and SB is plain better. And if you improve on that gear (especially with haste) the gap closes, too. And of course some of the best available gear only has +shadow damage and no fire. The real answer is: it depends. I don't think it'll make a big difference either way, though. I'm not a big fan of investing 10 talents points to make a spell I'll use only every 15s only marginally better than SB unless I have all debuffs present. It's definitely a good opener, for less threat risks at the start of a fight. | ||||||||||||
| #508 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Daem0n55 |
Hello guys i had a question some of my guild mates called me a idiot/moron for using Immolate into my dot rotation as Affliction, is it pointless to use immolate as a affliction warlock on a dot rotation?
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| #509 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Chimera |
Try reading the original post in this thread. Not only will it answer this question, it will also probably answer many more questions that you haven't thought of yet.
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| #510 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | punkrockrobot |
Question?
How much Spell Damage should I give up for HIT? I have Plenty of different Combo's of gear I could use. I can't seem to give up Frostweave boots, even though I have Boots of Foretelling and Ruby Slippers the damage is too Nice! Atm My Spec is 7/44/10 Seems i get more Shadow damage and Crit with this build vs 41/?/18 Guild just Killed Mag so we should be moving into SSC soon | ||||||||||||
| #511 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Maybe someone should make a nice post detailing warlock builds, gear choice, and how to tell what stat to prioritize. They should call it "the big warlock post with all answers" or "the warlock's cookbook". That sure would be convenient. | ||||||||||||
| #512 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | richard |
Thanks for all the immolate comments. I'm running with 4 pieces of tier 6 as destruction (21/40) and I always took the extra fire talents (imp. immolate and emberstorm) because I thought it would increase my dps.
Now I can spec out of it in favor of soul leech or whatever. | ||||||||||||
| #513 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Pentamorfi |
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Failing that, Boots of Blasting gives a nice increase to both hit and crit for a rather substancial sacrifice in damage. | ||||||||||||
| #514 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Sooka |
Late Game Affliction and Crit
Greetings.
I'm an Afflition lock who has a minor in destro(enough to hit range increase/threat reduction) and have recently managed to crest the cap on hit rating. That, of course, allows me to start playing the numbers game more intently on just how to maximize my DPS through new gear. With my guild pushing into BT and Hyjal, a lot is soon to open up to me. One thing I've been told recently by a friend is that the higher your personal damage gets, the more crit works for you rather than pure + spell damage. This was prompted when I spied a warlock in our top horde side raiding guild and saw that his gear had a lot of +crit/spell damage gems included. I've always thought hat crit wasn't something affliction locks should pursue in and of itself, but should accumulate by osmosis. To that effect, I've been planning to socket my gear with runed rubies/spinels. However, if the crit would do me better(and add to my ISB uptime), I'd probably for that instead. My question is as such.. is it true that crit can start to outweigh pure damage for gemming purposes? And if so, at about what point is it that I should consider gemming for crit? | ||||||||||||
| #515 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
Well, the hybrid gems may be because they didn't have enough [Runed Crimson Spinel]s to go around. Also, even for destro (which gets a lot more out of crit than affliction), gemming for pure crit gems is always a bad idea. However, the hybrid ([Veiled Noble Topaz] and it's BT/MH equiv.) gems may win out through combination of rounding errors and the ease of hit capping.
(Also, zomg someone from ER. The ArrPee-Errs are invading.) | ||||||||||||
| #516 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
There are no rounding errors, 5 crit/6 dmg vs 12 dmg
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| #517 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | doogless |
The rounding thing only happens on the rare quality version of the gems.
rare: 2 x veiled noble topaz = 8 hit, 10 damage 1 x runed living ruby + 1 x great dawnstone = 8 hit, 9 damage epic: 2 x veiled pyrestone = 10 hit, 12 damage 1 x runed crimson crimson spinel + 1 x great lionseye = 10 hit, 12 damage | ||||||||||||
| #518 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Morwen |
I was running some trials with Leulier's ISB simulator today to look for patterns in uptime:
WOW ISB Uptime Simulator These trials were mostly to see what effects are brought by relatively large changes in raid composition and specific specs. I took as a baseline of 20% untalented crit rate, so that affliction has 25% (Devastation) and destruction has 28% (Backlash), and assumed everyone is hit capped. 20 trials were run for each situation. The casting styles modelled are UA (41/0/20), SM-Ruin (40/0/21), Dest (0/21/40). 'SP' are shadow priests. A couple of the situations were run again with every warlock's crit rate raised by 3% or 6% (representing possible buffs from elemental shamans, ret paladins, etc.). ![]() _Composition_ _MeanUptime_ _StDev_ UA-Dest-SP 58.77 3.69 SM-Dest-SP 60.48 5.40 UA-Dest-2SP 50.63 3.43 SM-Dest-2SP 49.70 4.27 UA-2Dest-SP 61.94 2.42 SM-2Dest-SP 63.39 3.41 SM-2Dest-SP +3Crit 67.08 3.15 SM-2Dest-SP +6Crit 71.05 3.26 UA-2Dest-2SP 57.43 3.99 SM-2Dest-2SP 56.78 3.26 SM-2Dest-2SP +3Crit 61.76 3.85 SM-2Dest-2SP +6Crit 65.95 3.03 | ||||||||||||
| #519 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | lavis |
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Gear planning is an important part of raiding and comparing 2 peices of gear can be tedious at times but I find it easier to compare whole gear profiles with each other while using the dps spreadsheet. Sure you can find DPS of a single item but what if half the hit on the item is wasted when looking at your overall profile? As for the FSW boots question using a 21/40 destro spec Boots of Blasting will give you a better dps increase over something like FSW assuming all the hit in being used (IE your not over 202). Now the problem lies with wasted hit something you wont run into till late game but it becomes a huge problem. Wasted hit devalues all your items with hit so to compensate you must find items without hit. Most noteably Haste and Crit are the two stats traded for to "balance" your gear setup for maximum potential. It's ironic that hit will actually devalue to 0dps at 202, but while not at 202, hit is quite possibly your most important stat because of this going over the cap will net you wasted potential dps that could have been earned in the long run with a alternative non-hit item. Regemming is a nice fix for this problem for awhile but even that will become unhelpful at BT/Hyjal level when you dont even need hit gems. Here is an example...In these 2 lists I was comparing a almost identical gear setup but the major changes between them came to the weapons Tempest/Rage vs Illidan Staff and belt. Dement - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger Dement - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger Now note I had to switch items around because of the abundant hit given by the MH/OH combo and still you will be over cap. The two items themselves give almost identical preformance DPS wise however this assumes all the combos hit is in use. It devalues when the hit is not used pushing the Staff higher when looking at highest potential DPS. Imagine if I didnt swap Belt of Blasting with Anetherons Noose in the first gear list? I would be at 234 hit or 32 over the hit cap and guess how much hit the MH/OH provides 34 hit so without swaping other gear slots the useful hit on the combo would be 2... a large dps loss. | ||||||||||||
| #520 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe | |||||||||||||
| #521 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
What do you guys think about having one warlock gear/gem/enchant for pure crit (at the cost of damage) to try and maximize ISB uptime? Most guilds bring 3/4 locks, assuming one is Affliction for the utility talents would it be worth the nerf to one of the destro locks personal DPS to stack pure crit? I'm talking 10 crit rating gems and such, basically as much crit as possible while still being hit capped and maintaining semi-respectable damage level.
Looking at Morwen's post, with 3 locks one being Aff and two being destro about average crit rating the uptime is 57.43. Seems to me you could boost this a substantial amount having a third lock with tons of crit, which should in turn increase raid DPS by a decent margin. | ||||||||||||
| #522 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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I like the concept though, it sounds fun. You might want to use the succubus destro build, which has even higher crit and relies less on having high spellpower. (demonic tactics&knowledge vs backlash and SnF) Has anyone tried prioritising crit over other stats? How high could you get a warlock's crit chance? I'm guessing 50% might be achievable, given ToWrath, Moonkin Aura, Retri Pala Judgment. | ||||||||||||
| #523 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
It's possible, though a raiding moonkin is extremely rare in my experience. I'd have about 42% crit in raids w/ a moonkin. If I could get the Kazrogal legs, Vashj chest, anatheron belt and gem them with Crit I might be able to reach 50% lol.
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| #524 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bungle |
More ISB vs Malediction?
After doing a ZA where I was the only shadow priest, and I was with a single destruction lock, I found my dps had improved quite a bit compared to normal. When I next did it with a affliction lock, my dps was lower, I concluded that this was due to the fact that even though the maledicted CoS was adding an extra 3%, it was outweighed by the extra ISB uptime from having just me and one destro lock....
This got me thinking, if a lock can increase ISB uptime by 15% then they would increase shadow damage, on average, by 3% whilst at the same time probably doing a decent bit more dps than an affliction lock.. however this is where my thinking may well fall down, as Im just assuming that, Shadow damage % boost = 20% * ISB Uptime Is that completely wrong? Ive looked through a few threads and couldnt find a great deal of info regarding use of ISB, just discussions regarding calculating uptime. Anyway, assuming my theory is roughly correct, and assuming the following, 2 Destro locks with 25% crit 1 Affliction lock with 15% crit 1 Shadow priest I get an ISB uptime of 54% using Lueliers sim (duration of 300s). When I change the setup to, 3 Destro locks with 25% crit 1 Shadow Priest I get an ISB Uptime of 67.5%, an increase of 13.5%, which by my poor math works out to roughly 2.7% more shadow damage on average. So that almost balances out malediction, then on top of that the destruction lock will probably do more dps (They do in my guild, and from reading wws parses and this thread it seems to be the case for others). Now of course this just applys in certain cases, as if you run with more locks/priests you arent going to get such an uptime boost, and also if theres more than one mob, as you cant bolt more than one at once but you can keep CoS on them all. And of course, CoS also applys to arcane, though in my guild we only have a boomkin that uses arcane atm, who isnt always on raids, and all the mages are fire. So yeah, this is only going to apply in special cases/raid setups, but that aside, what are peoples thoughts on this, is my math completely off the mark? | ||||||||||||
| #525 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
While a bit odd to have a chicken in raids I was quite amazed at the dps on could put out given close to the right gear (quite a bit undergeared compared to me but still in around T6 level). Was a resto in our guild that went moonkin for a bit of Naxx fun. He did 1700 - 1800 to my 2390 on Patchwerk, both of us in the same group with 1 spriest, he didn't pot too much, I had all. Also he doesn't go moonkin too much so it's also a matter of getting used to. Guessing pushing 2000 shouldn't be too hard at the same gear/buff level.
Managed to reach 40.6% with moonkin, ele, adept's, AB, BoK with gear being gemmed mostly with Spinels and using 5/5 T6 so no nice crit items posted previously (damn that Vashj chest is sweet). There's also Council cloak for a nice 1.x% boost in crit, regemming for a few more %, Anetheron belt, crit trinkets ... 50% should be possible but dunno if only 1 crit buffed warlock would up the uptime too much. Maybe if 2-3 like this, who knows. Last edited by dakalro : 12/06/07 at 12:16 PM. Reason: shpeeeelling ... and fixed spelling in edit reason :)) | ||||||||||||
| #526 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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Interestingly enough, going 40% crit on both the destro warlocks give around about the same uptime, 74%. Thus, it may be just as well to spread around the crit "love" and achieve the same results without killing personal DPS. The best way to do this without regearing, of course, would be to bring a crit-enhancing group member, i.e. moonkin, ele shaman, or retadin in the raid. Of course, we already "knew" this from a personal DPS perspective, but now we can calculate its RDPS effects as well. | ||||||||||||
| #527 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
No, that's pretty much correct. It'll increase any damage done as long as it's up by 20%.
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| #528 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
We usually raid with 3-4 destro locks + 2-3 shadow priests. I guess I should tell my boys to stack crit eh LOL.
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| #529 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
If two warlocks have the same cast priorities, there's no difference between one stacking 10% crit and both of them stacking 5% crit, in terms of ISB uptime. My intuition is that the second case is better for personal dps but I could be wrong. If you're going to have only one warlock stack crit for ISB, you want to make sure it's the warlock with the highest SB casting measure, so it has more effect on the raid ISB uptime. In general, this means the warlock casting CoD or CoE/CoS, eschewing corruption, and has high haste as well.
An interesting alternative, if you have a high spread of shadow casters, is to stack haste instead of crit. If your three shadow casters are all warlocks with the same crit chance this won't change anything, but if you have two destro locks an aff lock and two shadow priests, it will increase the destro lock's relative contribution to the raid-average ISB proc chance, pushing up the ISB uptime. It also has a positive rather than generally negative effect on the warlock's personal dps. Working out the numbers is a bit more subtle though, and it's much more sensitive to raid composition. | ||||||||||||
| #530 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
Based on the models I've seen estimating ISB uptime, haste adds much less uptime per point than crit. For anyone interested, the rough models using weighted crit across each shadow member match up to the ISB simulator very closely. I'm still testing different raid-makeups, but that's my prelim results...
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| #531 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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I believe you are correct. However, affliction also provides Blood pact and Shadow Embrace. The 3% of extra damage malediction provides can be compensated for, while more HP and damage reduction can't be valued so easily. | ||||||||||||
| #532 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bungle |
Ah yes, I did neglect those benefits. So I guess it comes down to whether you think the extra dps from a destro lock over an affliction is better or not than 5% reduced boss melee damage and blood pact on a group (assuming your raid setup is similar to mine also so that the ISB uptime gain roughly equals the loss of malediction). The answer to which will vary fight to fight, and your raid composition. In my case, I think we'll just stay with the one affliction guy, simply because he won't be moaning after I ask him to respec
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| #533 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Compendium updated: cleared up a bit of text in the affliction tree, and added Shadow Embrace comments. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/07/07 at 1:26 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #534 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bolche |
The other benefit of malediction over an increased ISB uptime, is that is does also increase arcane damage by 2.7%.
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| #535 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Culok |
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To simplify a bit, assume both warlocks cast shadowbolt twice in their spell rotation. This means that ISB will be up if any one of the 4 bolts proc it and will stay up for the max duration. Two warlocks with 5% crit chance will end their shadowbolt casting with ISB up: 1-(0.95^4) = 18.55% of the time One warlock with 10% crit chance and one with 0% end their shadowbolt casting with ISB up: 1-(0.9^2) = 19% of the time. For a more extreme example, consider a pair of warlocks where one has 25% crit and one with 5% crit with a pair of warlocks both of who have 15% crit. The pair where one has 25% crit gets you: 1-((0.75^2)*(0.95^2)) = 49.2% Two with 15% gets you: 1-(0.85^4)+ = 47.8% | ||||||||||||
| #536 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko |
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RWC 1487 Ane 1310 Kaz 1513 Azg 1059 Naj: 1277 Suprem: 1281 Teron: 1205 (No Immo/SL) Last edited by Shuko : 12/09/07 at 7:13 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #537 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | SAViOR |
Hey there, I enjoy raiding as a 0/21/40 SB-lock and my guild is shortly before clearing raid content.
Since im destruction specced, i badly want/need this 4piece t6-bonus, but before I just throw out my dkp for all 5 pieces I'd like to know what item to use instead of a t6 item. Having 5/5 is pretty useless and there are better items than t6, but which of them is the most improving one? Has anyone thought of the "perfect" 0/21/40 (Shadow Bolt, Curse of Doom) gear? (If not, I know what to do tomorrow ) PS: It's late, I'm German, I hope you don't kill me for building sentences like this | ||||||||||||
| #538 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gumibear |
Most people will tell you to get either Leggings of Channeled Elements (my preference) or Vestments of the Sea Witch in place of your 5th piece of tier 6.
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| #539 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
The Illidan Helm is pretty good too, comparing the 3 non-Tier 6 on a 1 on 1 basis with my 40/0/21 spec the Illidan Helm is 2 dps better than the other options over Tier 6 equivalent, although that helm looks strange.
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| #540 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
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As shadow casting becomes desynchronized, due to different specs (spriest, aff, destro, demo, destro using CoE) what you'll probably see is over the fight the average will be the 1-(1-x)^4 model, but the distribution will be somewhat periodic, with the upper and lower limits being calculable from your approach. As far as whether or not you should stack all your crit on one warlock or not, I think the cutting-off point is four shadow casters, for the four ISB charges: if the shadow nukes can be seen as happening in clusters of four a single caster with a higher crit rate will boost the average; if not, you basically revert to the 1-(1-x)^4 model. | ||||||||||||
| #541 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
As far as I understand from lurking theses forums, since damage is calculated when the spell leaves the caster's hands but the debuff is consumed when damage is dealt (correct me if I'm wrong here), 1 charge left on ISB with all warlocks firing a shadowbolt before the 1st one's reaches the target would result in 1 charge applying to all shadowbolts?
Considering at least a certain amount of the shadowbolts will be fired "simultaneously" (as in, 1 leaves the caster's hand when another is in flight) will increase the ISB effect beyond the currently theorycrafted/simulated values, and will add an even more unpredictable variance as how the hell would you determine how often such a thing happens? | ||||||||||||
| #542 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Phantasie |
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T6 helm w/ the chaotic skyfire diamond. Go vash robe if you have it. If not, do channeled elements legs. edit; oops Last edited by Phantasie : 12/10/07 at 1:41 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #543 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Especially of note is that the Illidan helm has a blue socket to help turn on the CSD metagem, plus get +5 damage for your trouble. | ||||||||||||
| #544 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Phantasie |
Just for ez comparison sake, pulled this from my spreadsheet. Cowl and Channeled elements are pretty similar, yea you get little more crit and slight on dmg, but channeled has 2 extra sockets. Anywho, guess it really depends on what you do with your sockets and your spec. It's just sad that the T6 robe has that nice goose-egg for crit
..............................................Stam......Int......Hit....Crit......Dmg .....Sockets...................Socket Bonus Gloves of the Malefic...................57........27......11.....19........46.......Yellow......... ............2 hit Hood of the Malefic.....................55........36......16.....32........63.......Meta Yellow.............5 dmg Vestments of the Sea-Witch.........28........28......27.....31........57.......Yellow Yellow Blue....5 dmg Mantle of the Malefic...................45........22......21.....13........46.......Blue Yellow..............4 dmg Leggings of the Malefic................55........44......19.....37........62.......Yellow............ .........2 hit ................................................240......157.....94....132......274.. ....8 & Meta Gloves of the Malefic...................57........27......11.......19......46.......Yellow......... ............2 hit Mantle of the Malefic...................45........22......21.......13......46.......Blue Yellow..............4 dmg Leggings of the Malefic................55........44......19.......37......62.......Yellow............ .........2 hit Robe of the Malefic.....................66........29......28........0.......63.......Yellow Yellow Blue.....5 dmg Cowl of the Illidari High Lord........33........31......21.......47......64.......Meta Blue................5 dmg ................................................256.....153.....100.....116....281... ...8 & Meta Gloves of the Malefic...................57.......27.......11......19.......46......Yellow.......... ............2 hit Hood of the Malefic.....................55.......36.......16......32.......63......Meta Yellow..............5 dmg Robe of the Malefic.....................66.......29.......28.......0........63......Yellow Yellow Blue.....5 dmg Mantle of the Malefic...................45.......22.......21......13.......46......Blue Yellow...............4 dmg Leggings of Channeled Elements..25.......28.......18......34.......59......Yellow Yellow Blue......5 dmg ...............................................248.....142......94.......98......277. ....10 & Meta | ||||||||||||
| #545 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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The other thing you need to realize is that debuff application lags about between 0.5 and 1.2 seconds behind the SB crit. This is not just a visual effect, it doesn't actually start working until that point. This I'm 100% sure of, tested it myself when developing ShadowSeer. It is plain impossible to model it. Spreadsheets should be considered an approximation instead, since they base it on how the mechanics are supposed to work. You can get reasonably accurate ISB data on ShadowSeer, provided you're close enough to the boss for you to register debuff application events at all times. I'm not sure what exact range is, but it's less than 30yards, and that is not changeable. | ||||||||||||
| #546 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | SAViOR |
So I played around with some gear "sets" and I think I've found the best possible equip for a destruction warlock, casting CoD, SB and Immolate.
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger Please have a look at it and tell me if I'm wrong, if so. (The other profiles aren't updated, the client doesn't like my WoW anymore^^) | ||||||||||||
| #547 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
You could replace both rings with Spell Haste trash ones though, just need to find 9 hit rating somewhere. According to Leulier's sheet they're a bit better than both rings you used (I used +15 dmg as equiv for the Band proc but really have no idea).
Unfortunately I didn't have time while first going through BT/Hyjal to calc for haste so I just ignored it, but overall it's bracers and 2xrings that provide overall upgrades especially with needing (at least) 2 blue gems to activate CSD so boots/belt will be Naj/Anetheron and 4 pcs T6 being too big of an upgrade to break it with pretty much anything you might think of. I will probably end up using leggings of ce and T6 chest, whenever caster loot starts dropping, long queues for everything atm , but that's just my prefference, but not like I would ever get to do another Vashj kill. Also, seems greatstaff only comes close to MH+OH combo when you actually don't need any of the hit on the MH+OH. So if you have to use Nethervoid and Captured Storms for some reason you might as well go for Staff but it won't be best combo just best for the fixed variables in your gear. | ||||||||||||
| #548 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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| #549 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | SAViOR |
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And I already have t6 legs (for 100dkp, thats start for t6 xD) so I will end up asking for SSC raids in the realmforums But thanks for any critics! I updated my set, should be perfect now... Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger I use leuliers spreadsheet and it says Immolate sucks when I'm raidbuffed Didn't notice since I only used non-buffed stats, thanks. Last edited by SAViOR : 12/10/07 at 1:39 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #550 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
I don't understand why people go for the T6 legs/Robe of the Sea-Witch over T6 Robe/Leggings of Channeled Elements. The extra crit you receive from the T6 Legs/Sea-Witch is negligible in terms of ISB up-keep and DPS wise with the disparity in +dmg between both options, the extra crit will either make T6 legs/Sea-Witch on par(at best) or below T6 robe/Channeled Elements as according to leuliers +dmg>+crit.
What I wonder is where the new Heroic badge wand fits into all of this as with having a blue socket you won't need to re-socket as much to get 2 blue gems for the Chaotic Skyfire. | ||||||||||||
| #551 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Methadone |
I traded account and I just started raiding on my warlock. I have tried all the different specs people have talked about here and so far and I have found myself most comfortable with 0/21/40 Destruction. Kinda a n00b question, but what spells should I be using in my rotation, currently I am keeping corruption/CoD up and spamming shadowbolt...mana tapping when needed etc etc on bosses, and usually just CoA + Shadowbolts for trash. My gear is pretty decent wearing Spellstrike and similar gear. Thanks a lot!!
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| #552 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
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| #553 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
To warlocks that have completed the Illidari Council encounter:
Have you found that Affliction provides a significant DPS advantage over destruction at all, or is that not the case? At first glance it seemslike Affliction should be able to come on top due to the multiple target nature of this fight. However there are the issues of positioning/range/los, reflective shields and immunities (would require extra raid healing, which would not be optimal when learning the encounter) and the 30 second vanishes that may hinder such a large boost in practice. Wondering if any Warlocks that have tried both specs on this encounter would be able to shed some light on this. | ||||||||||||
| #554 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | SAViOR |
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Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger Sea Witch Robe / T6 Leggings: Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger I added 130 spelldmg (Fel Armor) and leulier's spreadsheet said: T6 Robe/Leggings of Channeled Elements: 1933,21dps (without lifetap) Sea Witch Robe / T6 Leggings: 1934,08dps (without lifetap) Also I can't find a correct gem to reach 202 spellhit, I think that's the 1 dps difference^^ | ||||||||||||
| #555 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Methadone |
Another quick question, on the average boss fight when is the best time for me to soul shatter? I currently wait till I hit about 90-95% aggro then use it....is this the way it should be used?
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| #556 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
Depends on the nature of the fight. Most bosses you can go to 130% before pulling aggro. Don't do this on prince, though.
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| #557 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Methadone |
Thanks for the answers ^_^
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| #558 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
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fel armor+CoD 2005.99DPS | ||||||||||||
| #559 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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I only cast Siphon on the Priest (due to her sometimes having reflective shield up), and try to cast DoTs on Mage (sometimes he is immune, so not always a good idea) and Rogue (when not vanished). | ||||||||||||
| #560 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
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| #561 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
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But yeah, 130% when not in melee range is the agro mechanic. Some abilities, like prince, work off of threat rather than agro--read up on a fight before going balls-out. | ||||||||||||
| #562 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Culok |
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The chance of ISB being up is the chance of someone (with ISB) in the raid getting a crit, So you can figure the odds of ISB having been proced by taking one minus the chance of no-one getting a crit on the Shadow Bolts they cast. I think you're making some comments about the fact that not everyone in the raid will cast Shadow Bolt but that doesn't affect how you figure out the chance for a proc for the people who did cast it. While you can take 1,000 Shadow Bolt casts distributed among any number of casters and figure out how many you expect to have been crits under different crit distributions, you'll find is that the same crit distribution that produces more dps at 10 bolts also produces more dps at 100 and more dps at 1,000. I though it was obvious that I wasn't discussing the case where different casters had different cast priorities. Your original post specifically stated that all the casters had equal cast orders which implies they have the same spec and cast spells in the same ratios. However, even with different specs, you can still calculate the odds the same process: count all the bolts each person casts over a set time, raise each caster's crit rate to that as an exponent, multiply the values for all the casters together and subtract all that from one. Please show your math for why you believe that things change if there are more than four shadow casters. | ||||||||||||
| #563 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | SAViOR |
![]() /edit: D'OH! forgot hasterating :/ sry so I edited the sets once again. Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2009,33 Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2009,30 ridiculous^^ Last edited by SAViOR : 12/11/07 at 9:05 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #564 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gruturistic |
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Anyway remember it has a limited range and it's resistable even if you're hit capped - have a backup plan for a resisted shatter (which could mean get ready to run to the boss and suicide before you cause a wipe, or have enough threat margin to be able to stop before running dots make you the new tank) | ||||||||||||
| #565 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Furio |
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I'd argue the difference in the specs depends on where exactly your raid positions the mobs (and where you are alloweed to stand to DPS). If you can conveniently stand in an area where you are in range (or very nearly in range) of Zavious (the mage) and Gathios (the pally), then Affliction can certainly win. Tossing DOTs on Lady Malande (the priest) can be effective if you very carefully watch your timers to avoid reflective shields. Chances are good that Veras (the rogue) will be far out of your range for most of the fight. For Destruction, I've found that my DPS improves significantly if I can switch SB spam from Gathios to Zavious whenever a) Zavious is not Spell Immune, and b) Gathios is using his spell resist aura. Depending on raid positioning strategy, that may not be possible for everyone. | ||||||||||||
| #566 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
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| #567 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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Helm: 100 hit, 121 crit, 368 dmg Chest: 94 hit, 152 crit, 348 dmg Legs: 94 hit, 118 crit, 375 dmg How about substituting Studios Wraps in for the gloves? ..............................................Stam......Int......Hit....Crit......Dmg .....Sockets...................Socket Bonus Studious Wraps..........................21........22......0.......25........40.......Red Blue.................4 dmg Hood of the Malefic.....................55........36......16.....32........63.......Meta Yellow.............5 dmg Robe of the Malefic.....................66.......29.......28.......0........63......Yellow Yellow Blue.....5 dmg Mantle of the Malefic...................45........22......21.....13........46.......Blue Yellow..............4 dmg Leggings of the Malefic................55........44......19.....37........62.......Yellow............ .........2 hit ................................................242......153.....84....107......274.. ....9 & Meta Gloves: 84 hit, 117 crit, 371 dmg Clearly a tad inferior to the other options, but doesn't rely on a t6 drop. | ||||||||||||
| #568 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
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8 more hit than I would like for a Draenei'd Totem of Wrath, but shouldn't be too bad for horde this way. | ||||||||||||
| #569 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
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Basically his contribution to the rest of the raid as a function of the number of raid shadow casters has a term of (4/x-1) where x-1 is the number of shadow casters who are not him. Any polynomial or exponential of this term is going to see qualitatively different behavior around x=5, and probability calculations involve polynomial and exponential terms. If you really want closed-form solutions I can be convinced to work them out but I bet they're ugly and I'd rather avoid it =P. In any case it's good to be aware that synchronized and desynchronized nuking behaves different with respect to ISB uptime. | ||||||||||||
| #570 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | weet |
Seeing as people are posting their 'ideal' gear setups, thought I would share mine.. which seems to be superior than what I have seen other people posting.
weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger Comes out as 2065 assuming I am using the same settings oom/eph have. horde profile (no-draenei hit aura) weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2057 One thing to note is that the Hyjal exalted ring is not modelled, so one can technically get higher numbers through Haste ring + Najentus ring but it will be lower once the proc is taken into account. Gear-sets with Illidan staff will also scale better again once you take pots/wrath of air into account. | ||||||||||||
| #571 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Culok |
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In math terms, I'm saying that damage from ISB increases monotonically for the odds of someone in raid getting a crit. If you haven't worked out the math already, why are you sure you're right? Last edited by Culok : 12/12/07 at 12:30 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #572 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ demonskye |
I need a quick bit of help. On the reliquary of souls fight would it be better to raid as affy / destro (43/0/18 ua spec w/ 12% crit) or 0/21/40 (with 17%crit after talents). I ask this for 2 reasons.
1. I couldn't find it answered elsewhere 2. The spell knockback in UA spec in phase 2 turns an imp SB's cast time from 2.5 seconds into about 7-9 seconds even with concentration aura / fel concentration. My idea is to mitigate the incoming spell knockback by increasing the burst damage rather than the periodic. Hasty feedback would be highly appreciated. I will most likely post some 'recount' results in a separate thread next week. thanks. DemonSkye. | ||||||||||||
| #573 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nas |
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| #574 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Phantasie |
as affliction in p2, just do corruption and shadowbolts (if you have a pally conc aura in your group) - if you add any more dots you'll get pushback out the ass like you said. corr for nightfalls.
As sac/destro the hard part of p2 is not killing yourself when a deaden hits. | ||||||||||||
| #575 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bandoer |
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| #576 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
In phase 2 as destro I just don't cast if the shadowbolt will land when deaden is up.
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| #577 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
Well, it's not like you can get 1-shot if you crit with deaden up, 9k-10k max returned and it's easy to see if you have the hp. And while you get a crit stop the next SB cast, there's enough time, though most of the time I just get healed back up instantly, sometimes not even seeing a drop in my hp bar even with an 18k SB crit, but it's still imprinted that I move if I see crit on the screen, just makes it safe.
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| #578 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Shai |
What also works well in this fight is FG spec, provided you don't have to use a Felhunter for devour and take Intensity. No risk of two-shotting yourself or pulling aggro which allows for constant nuking while the FG tears through the low armored boss and is getting ample healing if you have the T5 bonus.
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| #579 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
Alright, I'm looking for a little advice. I have used the spreadsheet o crunch some numbers, but am a little skeptical. According to it, crit is not nearly as good for me as damage (still best) and then haste. I'm raiding as 0/21/40 sitting at 1275 damage (with fel armor) 189 hit and 18.67 crit (paperdoll, not counting 5% from devastation). Now, I realize that 1 crit rating gets you far less crit than 1 haste rating gets you haste and that is what is making the results come out like this.
First things first, I realize that hit rating is the most important and I will be hit capped in the next few days (we are running TK for the last time ever tonight so I'm hoping for T5 shoulders or Solarian wand, and I am first in line for the next T6 gloves/helm). I will either get a drop that does it or will regem a few +9s as 4/5 hit damage to be capped. My real question here... is crit really as useless as it seems? Does the spreadsheet take into account accurately increased ISB uptime benefit and the 100% crit bonus from ruin? I feel like I have a ton of damage for my gearlevel (0 T6 0 +12 gems), should I sacrifice some for crit? And is haste really that much better than crit? I know it is better at higher gear levels because of the conversion factor, but what about Locks that aren't in mostly T6 gear and have less than 20 paperdoll crit%? | ||||||||||||
| #580 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | achille |
I'd personally be interested in seeing some math around the party buffs. For example, how much of a dps boost to a warlock specced X is having a shaman in his party vs a mage vs a moonkin druid?
And if possible, how much more valuable, if at all, is having a warlock over a mage in the moonkin party? Anecdotal evidence is that a t6 destro warlock dps' is highter than a mage's, so the benefit would be bigger getting the extra crit, but the imp sb uptime is the real deal, so to speak. | ||||||||||||
| #581 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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| #582 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
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Also, the 3% hit from the totem of wrath. Mages (at least arcane ones, I'm not 100% sure about other specs) have talents that help them reach the hit cap whereas destro locks pretty much have to have 202 hit from gear. Being able to get 3% from a totem frees up more room for damage/crit/haste gear. As far as moonkins, my guild has never tried adding a boomkin to the raid makeup so I can't really speak from experience but it seems the crit would benefit the warlocks more for the same reasons. | ||||||||||||
| #583 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Put mages with the resto shaman and a shadow priest, they'll love mana tide (which is a huge waste for warlocks). Moonkins and Elementals are pretty much what warlocks want. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/13/07 at 3:23 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #584 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Reflection |
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This applies to my guild and probably most of your own guilds. Mages do not have Life Tap and therefore need Shadow Priests moreso than a Warlock. By luck of the draw, us locks tend to be tossed around into oblivious raid slots. If by chance I do get thrown into a Shadow Priest group, I'd likely trade spots with a Mage. My guild has 3 Shadow Priests (usually raid with 1-2) and 1 Elemental Shaman. | ||||||||||||
| #585 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
You should always have at least 1 destro lock in the elemental shaman group, and its something you should push your group to recognise. If you have 2 SP's in the raid, there's no reason for the mage not in the shaman group, not to have a shadow priest of his own.
As for how much of a DPS increase a destro lock gets from a ele shammy/SP group, last i checked accounting for gear switches i gain roughly ~12-14% DPS. That's without accounting for heroism, which is about a 28% increase for 40 secs. How much that averages out to depends on the encounter length. | ||||||||||||
| #586 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
I mathed out the personal gain when our guild picked up a Draenei Elemental a few months back to about +200dps. This was really rough math and a while back gear-wise, but its probably a decent estimate.
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| #587 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
It's not too hard to see % increase by just pluggin the numbers on top of your own into the spreadsheet. My numbers show roughly what Arelenda notes (~1% dps increase from 0.9% hit, 1.1%crit, 18 damage). On top of that I see close to 1% dps increase from 50 mp5.
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| #588 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bandoer |
Crit is the worst stat for personal dps. (until you get to a +dmg that is currently unreachable) However, each crit increases raid damage by X. Depending on what number you plug in for that X, crit can be one of the best stats. But obviously it's a struggle to model that.
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| #589 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | achille |
These answers confirm pretty much my thoughts, but what i'd like to see is this.
You have a group made by: 3 mages, 1 moonkin and 1 shadowpriest. How much personal dps would the mage loose by being swapped out from that party and be put in a party with say 1 or 2 hunters? How much personal dps would the warlock gain/loose by being swapped from the hunter party in the moonkin party? How much raid dps would the warlock produce when being put in the moonkin party (referring to imp sb uptime obviously)? | ||||||||||||
| #590 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bolche |
There is no way to find the the "personal crit to ISB uptime" conversion in a raid setup. Because it depends on the other warlocks and SPs. This is why I made a simple ISB simulator. It is far from beeing perfect, but the results are very close from what I get ingame with shadowseer.
To answer your question : If I take my raid as an exemple : 3 warlocks : 1 affliction (15% crit), 1 destruc (25% crit), 1 demono (15% crit - me), and one SP. The average ISB uptime I get when running (10 times at max duration) the simulator is 48.6% If I raise my crit to 20%, I get an ISB uptime of 51.8% So increasing my crit by 5% increased the ISB uptime by 3.2%, thus increasing the raid shadow damage by 3.2*0.2 = 0.64% Asuming that the 4 shadow users are doing the same dps as me ([dps]), the raid gained : My personnal dps increase : [dps]*1.5% (approx what I gain from 5% crit :-( ) The other WL/SP dps increase : [dps]*4*0.64% = [dps]*2.6% So roughly the raid gained [dps]*4.1% | ||||||||||||
| #591 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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| #592 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
While calculating the DPS loss of a mage from not getting WoA/ToW/moonkin aura is easy, calculating the DPS loss of a moonkin/mage/ele shaman from not having a shadow priest is a lot more complicated and really depends on the fight. It can be anywhere between 0 DPS loss to a pretty huge DPS loss. Since the elemental shaman and moonkin need the shadow priest and the warlocks don't, if you don't have shadow priests for all your casters (as in, only 1, or even 2 won't be enough if it's a fight where healers really need a SP) you end up with the mages getting the ele shaman/moonkin just because of shadow priest management, not becuase their DPS scales any better with crit, as raid DPS obviously scales better by increasing a destruction warlock's crit chance over a mage, but because both the ele shaman/moonkin and the mages need the SP and the SP needs a shaman so they're grouped up.
Granted if you have 3 shadowpriests in a raid (or 2 and decide your healers don't need 1) and enough (2-4) shamans, you can easily give the crit buffs to the destruction warlocks and gain raid DPS as a result. | ||||||||||||
| #593 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Warlocks get at least 6% extra dps from the moonkin, and a decent amount of the priest (I'd say another 6%, given 50mp5 was 1%). Typically mages want a shadow priest and a resto shaman, they're mana hungry. Warlocks want a moonkin and an elemental shaman. If there's spare shadow priests, warlocks will want them too (not to mention the moonkin and elemental shaman will want shadow priests). Ideally, I'd make a party with moonkin/elemental shaman/spriest and two warlocks, or moonkin/elemental/3xlock, and put shadow priest/resto shaman/3xmage. But Shadow Priests are absolutely insanely good for other mana users, give shadow priests to other classes first. For warlocks, they're a luxury. | ||||||||||||
| #594 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Moonkin/elemental/3Xlock will starve the moonkin/elemental for mana in general, a they're probably more mana hungry than mages afaik (correct me if I'm wrong), which is why when you're short on shadow priests you end up giving the mages the crit buffs.
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| #595 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Brooklyn |
Is there any Theorycrafting on who benefits the most from an elemental shaman, mage vs wl?
I see at least 2 downsides to group wl's with an elemental shaman: - Each lifetap is wasting 1,5 s of totem usage. - Elemental Shamans are essentially tied up to a SP. The SP now generates additional threat by "healing" the life taps of 2-3 wl's. There are some fights where our sp's are already threat capped (bloodboil/ros i.e ). Add that to the fact that wl's already have unlimited mana, I son't see how an elemental/SP/3x WL group can be superior to an elemental/SP/3x Mage grp. We don't sport any Moonkins btw. I don't think the improved ISB Debuff Up-time can justify that. Excuse my not-so-perfect english it's not my mothertongue. | ||||||||||||
| #596 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
Actually, WoA affects the mana regen from lifetap and mana spring decreases the need for it. I don't think anyone is really advocating sticking locks with a shadow priest if you only have one in the raid right now. If you have more than one shadow priest handy, and mages get the extra one, then the elemental shaman is undoubtedly better with the locks than with mages. Though i'd guess your hunters would want one too, which is why most people go with 1 shaman, 1 SP, 1 destro lock and 2 mages.
I'm not sure the threat issue is limited to warlocks, any class in a group with a SP on those fights will produce the same effect. To put this in perspective, our SP healed me for ~48 k dmg on our last bloodboil, and healed himself for ~44 k. That's about a 1.4 k difference on threat. More often than not, a direct heal/HoT from another healer is topping me off before VE can do much healing. | ||||||||||||
| #597 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
What spec/gear setup is recommended to tank Illidan? I have 4 of the 5 crafted pieces (except the pants), not sure whether I need them or not.
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| #598 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Trianiel |
First of all, i hope you'll excuse my poor English, i'm coming from French realms ...
I want to bring in this post some feedback on the 7/44/10 spec, and on the hit rating of the Felguard versus Worldbosses. [The thing coming here is FALSE, but i keep it :] I noticed that Leuliers spreadsheet was wrong on that point, and last nights i had issue concerning hit, Leuliers talks about 8% miss on WB for pets, my WWS (i can post it on demand) shows around 14% miss for the FG. (After watching it seems that i have 7% miss, 1/2% Parried and 5% Dodged, summing up to 14% of 0 damage hit, sorry mister Leulier) Also, i was using a classic spell rotation : CoD, Corruption, ShadowBolt Filling ... LT every 12 sec to keep my mana pool topped, as the only warlock(using shadows) in the raid the ISB uptime was around 41.37% (i have 16.6% crit), and according to Leuliers spreadsheet my mean DPS is around 1300 ... But i managed to make only 900/800 dps on bosses like Malcheezar or Shade of Aran (That don't needs so much moves and target switching, so i find them quite representative). So my question is, is there known issues concerning Felguard spec DPS calculation on Leuliers Ss, or am i doing something wrong ? I am sorry to bring nothing more than a (false) "% of miss of the FG" to this thread, and i'll try next time to bring forth more usefull things. Last edited by Trianiel : 12/14/07 at 6:03 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #599 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Fafhrd |
You need full shadow resist gear to avoid getting hit by a full 11-12k Shadow Blast. Aim for more than 12k hp buffed.
When you are learning the fight it's easier on your healers to be SL spec. | ||||||||||||
| #600 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ormus |
Time of Calculation?
Hello Warlock-Community,
I'm not sure, if this place is the right one, the ask this question, but I couldn't find anything using the search-function. My Question: When (exactly) ist the time of calculation for "flying"-Spells. Example: When happens the Bonus-Damage-Calculation (i.e. Improved-Shadowbolt-Debuff with SB // Scorch, immolate with incinerate // Shatter with frostbolt ...)? Is it the BEGINNING of cast, the end of casttime or the moment, the spell hits the mob (+flight-duration)??? Thanks for your answers Sorry for my bad english (i'm german Greets Ormus | ||||||||||||
| #601 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Note that haste obviously is calculated at start of cast too. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/14/07 at 6:36 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #602 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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You thinking stuff doesn't necessarily make it true. If you want to convince anyone here, show us numbers. Using the tools mentioned in the compendium, us warlock sport a roughly measured 6% damage from WoA, at least 3% from crit depending on how you model ISB, and 3% from hit bonus. Add Draenei +1% if you're alliance. As far as I know, mages benefit less from each of these, correct me if I'm wrong. Now add heroism, which is something mages tend to benefit less from too: good mages run OOM at the moment the boss dies, so getting more spells in benefits them less than warlocks. Personal rant: I think play skill and latency will be much bigger factors in determining raid dps, drowning out any measurable difference of putting warlocks or mages with resto/elemental shamans. You probably just want your best players in that group. In our raids, I routinely see top dps people at 150% of the average dpser (regardless of class/spec). It might be gear, latency, people being clueless or just slacking. But given this, I find debating 2-3% extra personal dps just rather hypothetical at this time. | ||||||||||||
| #603 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Claster |
Aim for max shadow resist (365) with shadow protection buff up. That was enough for our guild. We didn't use SL specced lock even during the training of the encounter.
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| #604 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ormus |
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Is there a difference between modifiers (=Spellpower / multipliers) on the caster (i.e. trinkets / procs) and modifiers on target (i.e. ISB-Debuff / scorch)??? I mean the moment of "locking" / calculating damage. Greets Ormus | ||||||||||||
| #605 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Brooklyn |
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Being the Raid-Leader, I'm trying to decide those matters based on facts and not gut-feeling. That's why I asked. | ||||||||||||
| #606 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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All stuff is the same regardless of whether they're caster buffs (Shadow Mastery, Demonic Sacrifice) or target debuffs (ISB, CoS). | ||||||||||||
| #607 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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To a raid leader I'd recommend putting the highest dps people in the group with the shaman, provided no mage goes without a shadow priest. Solid numbers are hard to give, due to reasons mentioned in aforementioned rant: it depends more on everything else. Especially when learning a new encounter, I'd reckon other factors will be a lot more important in determining success then the few % dps gained by putting the right mages/locks with the shaman. | ||||||||||||
| #608 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Talosh |
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But in reality it depends on the encounter. For Bloodboil e.g. I see no use for me to have either a shadow priest or an elemental shaman since I always scratch the border of overaggro. However for Illidan a warlock don't have that much aggro problems if you don't start right away with a crit series. Next factor is the duration of an encounter and in what state you are. For learning a new encounter healers which don't run oom are more useful than dps without mana. Conclusion: there is no recipe for the best setup as long as you have so many points to bear in mind Last edited by Talosh : 12/14/07 at 8:59 AM. Reason: typo | ||||||||||||
| #609 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Pintofbrew |
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I can't profess to know whether shaman totems benefit a mage more than a lock. I'd hazard a guess that you gain more benefit from both crit and spelldamage, given you have a much more friendly coefficient in the form of SnF, Maledicted CoS and ISB. Even though our crit modifier is *2.1 compared to your *2. Hit rating benefits equally I'd think too, though given you output more DPS is more technically valuable to you. It's also more conventional for a mage to hit hitcap before a warlock does in gear terms. On your other two points, I simply must stop you however. You display lacking knowledge of the mage class: Firstly, no, a good mage will not run OOM at point of boss death. You are perhaps getting confused with 2.2 Arcane spec. When this was possible, it was theorized that the optimum would be to *burn* all your mana on the very costly but very high DPS spell Arcane Blast. Technically, a perfect 2.2 Arcane mage would end with 0 mana but under no circumstances should be OOM before the end. Either way, since 2.3 Fire is generally considered to be the most raid-effective spec and Arcane has been broken by having it's item-dependency incapacitated. A Firemage should not have any trouble maintaining enough mana throughout an encounter, even without a SP. Given SP however, they can switch to Destro Pots to maxmize Cooldown Synergy (ie. Icy Veins in 2.3.2, Combustion, Trinket, Flamecap, Destropot all together). And as for Bloodlust/Heroism, undoubtably a mage's biggest weapon is Molten Fury which increases their output by 20% when the boss is under 20% health. This makes Bloodlust (and afforementioned cooldown synergy) at 19% boss health a hugely powerful combination for Firemages, arguably better use to them than Destrolocks who have no such fluctuation in output. Finaly on your point of "getting more spells in benefits them less than warlocks." I don't understand what you're trying to say... A small percentage of your damage comes from CoA/CoD but by and large you're almost entirely dependent on SB Spam to make your numbers, just like we're dependent on Fireball/Scorch spam for 100% of our output. How are you justifying "more spells don't benefit" a mage more than you? | ||||||||||||
| #610 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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It seems that this makes it even harder to decide what is better. I'll stick with my previous statement: put your best players with the elemental shaman, be they warlocks or mages. This is assuming they're not threat capped. Did they fix ignite yet so fire crit modifier is a real 210% now? It used to be 150% + 60% ignite dot that got overwritten by subsequent crits. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/14/07 at 12:40 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #611 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Roywyn |
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As far as I know, <The Flaming Ruby> is raiding with a couple of very convinced arcane mages, so it's hard to argue for or against it. * Fire specs just scale vastly better than arcane. Arcane needs 2/5 T5 and a huge amount of excessive mana to spam AB. Fire scales with all the +hit and +haste on T6 level gear and with 4/5 T6. Come 2.3.2 and Icy Veins (20% haste for 20sec, 3min CD), fire will be more mana hungry, but 1 shadow priest is about all the mana a mage needs*. There is no real option to burn mana for more damage. Having more mana means that damage is increases by not using Evocation (cast time lost), using molten armour over mage armour, using Flame Caps instead of mana gems, and Destruction Potions instead of SMPs. Check the mage thread for numbers, it's roughly 0.4-0.5 spell damage equivalent gained per 1mp5 from outside. * Ignite has been "real 210% crits" for about a year, since 2.0 came and rolling ignites were removed. It can bug on occasion when one player has two crits at the same time, but it has next to no impact on raiding. * Heroism at 20% on mages is probably the most you can get from a heroism in a caster group. Mages have two 3 minute cooldown talents and usually trinket/flame cap to save when the boss gets to 20% and takes 20% from them. If you really min-max though, you're probably better off rotating your shaman through the melee group. | ||||||||||||
| #612 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | gargosch |
We agree on a One Roll system right ?
So the win of 1% hit is only +1% dps without any crit. With a hight crit modifier and a high crit chance the win of 1% hit is alot less. With ruin and 33.33..% crit your personal damage is 50% from crits, so increasing the non crit damage by 1% will only lead to 0.5% overall dps gain. This is why crit is not so bad vs. hit. Can someone confirm this? | ||||||||||||
| #613 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arnath |
There's a post somewhere around here that gives a decent amount of evidence for a 2 roll system. It's generally agreed that it's probably 2 rolls at this point I believe.
EDIT: Found the post: Quick question about 1 roll or 2 roll system for casters | ||||||||||||
| #614 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gumibear |
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Edit: TA during the parts where threat actually matters anyway. A good Elemental Shaman knows when to switch between Wrath of Air and Tranquil Air for a high damage caster group. | ||||||||||||
| #615 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Latus |
ok so ive been reading about the arguements for and against 30/21/10, and mostly i see "has less crit" and "does not have ruin" so now given this and after making an adjustment has anyone ever tried 19/21/21
basically since most of the highest end gear still promotes casting corruption i tried to keep things like imp corruption, nightfall, and as much empowered corruption as i could, while still having shadowbolt be fairly strong, you only lose out on 3% crit and the 20% more +dmg to shadowbolt from shadow and flame. not saying that this is a great build, as it is mainly just me tinkering, but im mainly looking for input and opinions and if anyone has ever tried this out. | ||||||||||||
| #616 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Pintofbrew |
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I'm willing to argue against rotating Bloodlust through melee. Any melee class never has more than 60% of their damage from white attacks and as such can never gain as much as any caster which has 100% damage from casts (Edit: which can be hasted, of course. So AB spam and Aff locks are out). Rogues may have a dozen cooldowns, but more than half their damage is from yellows. Shamans will hit the WF CD cap and gain a maximum of 0.3 WF procs per second, yellow attacks also are CD limited. Fury warriors? Arguably of the melee they gain the most, as the increased attack rate will cause an increase in WF-totem proc over time, as well as more crit-per-second making more Rage. Rage of course, translates into more yellow attacks. Even so, unless we're talking a seriously melee-heavy fight, or some kind of melee gimmick (Twin Azinoth vs. Demon spring to mind, though I understand that has a nerf inc at last) I'd definitely not think it reasonable to rotate Bloodlust through melee. | ||||||||||||
| #617 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
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| #618 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Latus |
well on the destro side at least having devastation and ruin since everyone seems to complain about the crit and lack of ruin, getting at least DS on the demonology side to sac the succ, and still having a decent corruption that can proc nightfall on the affliction side since a lot of the later gear procs from corruption, ie the 2 piece tier six or the ashtongue trinket, or benefits from having it up ie the tier 5 4 piece.
yeah i know you lose siphon life and shadow mastery but people seemed to think the crit and such was more important so i swapped it out just as 0/21/40 it seems like you would never cast corruption at all, given that it is no longer instant cast | ||||||||||||
| #619 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Rogues also gain more yellows via combat potency, on top of simply higher DPS than any other class. However I've yet to see the math to show wether this is actually better than heroism/BL on a destruction warlock.
Shaman would obviously the one who is swapped out for the heroism/BL (assuming you can swap back right after heroism/BL is casted) so his lack of benefit from it doesn't matter. | ||||||||||||
| #620 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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While criting more often is a nice goal, you want to help kill the boss with a decent dps spec first. | ||||||||||||
| #621 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Latus |
yeah thats what i was thinking but everyone was clamoring about the lost crit, but yeah im one to think that 30/21/10 isnt such a bad build since it will double percentage buff just about everything you are casting, and as you get the benefit of more % buffs the benefit becomes bigger. with a lock casting CoS with malediction, full shadow weaving, misery and a ISB debuff up your shadow damage % goes to 198% of normal whereas without the shadow mastery its just, 180% with everything i mentioned up
13% buffed CoS (1.13) 10% shadow weaving (1.1) 5% misery (1.05) 20% ISB (1.2) 15% sacced succ (1.15) 10% shadow mastery (1.1) 1.13*1.1*1.05*1.2*1.15= 1.80 without SM 1.13*1.1*1.05*1.2*1.15*1.1 = 1.98 with SM this is also assuming one gets calculated after another and that it doesnt calculate as pre percentage buffed damage for each percentage buff then adds them all together and adds that to your damage, but im pretty sure it does what my calculations are doing and are actually multiplicitive. but please tell me if my math is wrong or whatnot cause im really just interested in making sure i calculate this all right | ||||||||||||
| #622 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
If you are comparing the crappy 30/21/10 to the better 21/40, you forget the 20% more spell damage to Shadow bolt, which is a lot more than 10% damage (13-18% is head math, it scales with gear), and the first bad build uses corruption, so has a lower SB uptime.
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| #623 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Latus |
well i was mainly listing the buffs that affect everything shadow and affect the entire spell rather than granting bonus of +spell dmg, also other than the lower crit and global cooldown incured by casting it i guess what about corruption makes the uptime of ISB less? its not like it eats charges.
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| #624 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
+spell dmg is just a DPS increase as +% dmg. The only difference is that one depends on how much spell dmg you have and the other on how much damage you do, but both are DPS increases and you cannot just ignore one. Basically I don't see what all the arguments are about. You have a spreadsheet - use it. It even lets you take just about any possible assumption you could think might tip the scales into account.
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| #625 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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Sure, mages can dump the 3 talents in the frost tree if you are guaranteed an elemental shaman. But where would you put them? | ||||||||||||
| #626 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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It might be better on certain fights, though. | ||||||||||||
| #627 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Does the shaman really need to stay in the group for the duration or can he be swapped right away? Should test that sometime but I don't think I'll have a chance to anytime soon. Anyway unless the effect is very similar on the melee and casters in terms of overall dps gained, the 40s of lesser totem would be negligible, although if after doing the math you get a close call regarding who should get it then definitely take into account the weaker totems (assuming you actually have to keep the shaman in that group after casting heroism, otherwise your point is moot as you just swap him for a fraction of a seconds (well, more like latencyX2+reaction timeX2+mouse movement timeX2)).
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| #628 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Bloodlust is a buff, not an aura, so it should be resilient to group-swapping. In general, things with a duration are tied to the character. The only ones I know of that aren't, are tied to location (consecrate, flamestrike), not to auras. So I'm going to go with yes, you can group swap, unless they've added very special code saying otherwise. Although I would suggest that if lots of people start taking advantage of this they *will* special-code it. In the process though it very well could end up being a tradiational aura-type buff, making it undispellable except off the shaman.
Mana tide on the other hand is a totem, meaning it is an aura tied to a player's "guardian" and therefore dynamically tied to group membership. However, the buff refreshes on normal combat ticks so you should be able to squeeze an extra second or two out of a group shift. I wonder if spam-swapping could give two groups mana tide... Personally I think in-combat group swaps are mildly exploitative, in that they're not disallowed but the lack of support makes them seem discouraged, but if you're more lax with respect to those sorts of things, by all means try it. | ||||||||||||
| #629 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | UnholY_Prince |
Correct, you swap a Shaman to a group, immediately Bloodlust, and immediately switch him back to have the said party retain the Bloodlust.
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| #630 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Point taken. I was wrong in my original assumption. ![]()
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| #631 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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You lose: 15% stamina and some max health 30 spell power 15% shadow damage You gain: An imp for blood pact 10% shadow damage through SM 2.7% shadow damage (which combines into 13%) through Malediction, which you are now providing for the entire raid Siphon Life, Dark Pact 3/3 Emp Corruption Equal range on all spells 5% damage reduction through Shadow Embrace In other words, it's at best equal dps output with less perks then the raid support build. Spamming Corruption with Nightfall is a pvp thing, really. In PVE Nightfall is not a talent you want to devote a spec to. Just let it rest. | ||||||||||||
| #632 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | bobobo |
The point is for a succubus sac, no?
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| #633 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arnath |
As 0/21/40, is it better to pop Super Mana Potions or Destruction Potions? I feel like the mana pot has the edge here because you're gaining a little more than one Lifetap in mana and time, which gains you a really solid amount of damage (more than I feel like the 4 Shadowbolts you'd get out of the Destruction pot would be). However, I can't really do math well enough to work this out myself.
EDIT: Ugh, never mind, found the post I was looking for. | ||||||||||||
| #634 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Twopint |
I haven't seen much discussion on T6 locks that are stuck with the imp. Have so far done several WWS parses of all the MH/BT fights as 0/40/21, 21/0/40 and 40/0/21, and those are written in the order of DPS experienced. Am I missing any other vital spec to try out, or is this what others have experienced as well?
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| #635 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
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The Demo variant isn't worth trying for me, since the reduction in aggro from imp isn't useful since I only need to soulshatter on Bloodboil. | ||||||||||||
| #636 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Shinanigans |
I was looking through the main post and cannot seem to find the solid numbers for how much +spell hit (%) you need to be capped for SSC/TK/MH/BT bosses.
Anyone have a number on this? Seeing alot of people not going any higher than about 120 hit rating nowadays. | ||||||||||||
| #637 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Furio |
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I don't know who you're looking at that only has 120 hit rating. 202 hit rating is the cap (16%). If you reliably have an Elemental Shaman for Totem of Wrath, then you'd only need 164 hit rating (if the Shaman is Draeni then only 152 is needed). | ||||||||||||
| #638 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | semi |
202 for maxed hit, but you can then go lower if you have a draenei caster in your group, even lower if its an ele shaman. Helps to stack a lot of hit on a single item so that you can swap it when you dont need it.
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| #639 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | dotcow |
Spell Haste > Spell Crit and Damage?
Question about the 21/40 spec and spell haste. I've read the OP and understand the basic fundamentals of this spec, I've played it for a while. But with ZA and the new heroic badge gear I've stumbled upon a vast amount of spell haste gear. Is it wise of me to lose spell crit and some spell damage to stack on spell haste?
My current gear is something like: 1160 shadow damage 15-16% crit without the 5% from devastation 205 spell hit and I believe 155 spell haste Without the haste I could get my shadow damage up about 100 pts and my crit up 4-5% while keeping capped hit. Any help would be appreciated... thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #640 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
Many people (including me), log out in PvP or "normal" gear, which you don't need 202 hit rating. For PvP you need 3% (38 hit rating) and normal gear having at least 6% (for level 72s), or 77 hit rating, however the best gear has lots of hit rating, such as my normal gear has like 140 hit rating.
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| #641 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Lieuler's spreadsheet should ansewr your questions regarding specific gear choice question.
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| #642 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | semi |
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Just guessing at your numbers, you'll probably be doing better dps overall without the haste. You'll certainly be putting ISB up a lot more and helping your raid out. That being said, haste is fun. Factor that in based on how badly your guild needs you to be doing optimal dps vs how much room you have to do things for no other reason than personal enjoyment. | ||||||||||||
| #643 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
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On a movement fight haste might actually be better than crit, because with X haste you might be able to fit Y+1 <damage spell> into <time frame> where as without the haste you could only fit Y <damage spell>. Or maybe you get enough time to fit 1 <damage spell> before being forced to move whereas without haste, can't risk it. | ||||||||||||
| #644 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
More haste means you lifetap more often, which gives haste very slight diminishing returns. This had been discussed already, however it is very slight diminishing returns. And again using a simple spreadsheet will tell you exactly how much it's worth for you, at least more accurately than you could figure out with speculations.
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| #645 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | semi |
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True, but every spreedsheet I've seen has valued dmg higher than crit, so maybe thats part of it. I guess the real problem with haste is just its ilvl budget means you sacrifice a lot just to get something that is barely noticable and something that hurts your mana. If lifetap was off the GCD haste would be pretty good. | ||||||||||||
| #646 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Haste increases your dps without increasing your dpm. For a warlock caster model, with lifetap or darkpact, the fact that your lifetaps aren't hasted decreases the overall benefit you get. Crit increases your dps and dps, and does not change your absolute rate of mana consumption, so you can take your cast order as a given and simply look at the percent increase. And yes, damage is better than crit as well, so haste being worse than both crit and damage is completly logical.
It's nothing about haste itself, or item budget or anything, it's just the warlock regen model. That's not to say you should avoid haste like the plague: evaluate every piece of gear you get individually, but be aware that haste rating is point-for-point not a good stat. | ||||||||||||
| #647 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
While yeah, you use more lifetaps, remember that 15.7 haste is needed for 1% haste, while 22.1 crit rating is needed for 1% crit. It's a very big difference.
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| #648 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gumibear |
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| #649 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
You also have to consider the fact that on a vast majority of encounters, you can perform a lot of your lifetap's on the go so to speak, and in that situation haste's effect on lifetap is minimized. That said, just evaluate it on a piece by piece basis. Some haste piece's obviously aren't worth it (like the shoulders), and some are very good.
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| #650 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Vazu |
Ok, I have an issue with two items and Spell Haste specifically that I need help with. I picked up a Loop of Cursed Bones off Zul'jin tonight, and I can't quite tell if it's better than Ritssyn's overall for my spec. I'm asking the end-game Warlock community what they think.
I am 6/44/11 and generally raid with around 1700+ shadow, capped +hit, ~27% crit fully buffed with consumables. Loop of Cursed Bones +19 Stamina +20 Intellect (.25% Spell Crit @ L70) Equip: Improves spell haste rating by 27 (1.71% @ L70). Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 32. vs. Ritssyn's Lost Pendant +24 Stamina Equip: Increases damage done by Shadow spells and effects by up to 51. Is the spell crit, haste and 32 spellpower added to Immolate (Ritssyn's does nothing for) worthwhile? I pulled a random Teron Gorefiend log where I didn't get marked and was CoD'ing as a decent point of reference in terms of damage breakdown. Here is a breakdown of the major contributers: Shadowbolt: 46% Felguard: 17% (This includes Cleave) Corruption: 10% Curse of Doom: 9% Immolate: 9% Ritssyn's or LOCB? Thoughts on Spell Haste in general? | ||||||||||||
| #651 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Konomi |
BOOTS!
I am having trouble picking what boots to wear if i go Destruction!
Which is better.... Boots of blasting 25 stam 25 int 18 hit 25 crit 39 spell dmg Shadoweave boots 15 stam 9 int 2x 9 spell dmg gems 57 shadow dmg or.... Boots of the Shifting Nightmare 41 stam 22 int 18 hit 59 shadow dmg lol prob a dumb question but just a hard choice for me to figure out..... each set of boots have their own ups and downs... Thanks | ||||||||||||
| #652 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
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| #653 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Wase |
Hello guys I am currently new to all this "theory craft" stuff and I have a couple questions. Currently I am a 70 Warlock on garithos and in a raiding guild doing ZA/Gruuls/Kara. I am geared decently you could say, I am putting out a good amount of damage about top 5 in gruul/Za and top 3 in Kara but I can seem to put of the damage per second i think i should be. For example in Gruuls last night I was number 4 in damage out damaging the warlocks and some good geared people but I was 8th in DPS with about 480 per second while the other warlock had 520 (was destruction with 1300 shadow dmg)
Im built WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator When I'm Dpsing i use SL >> Corr >>> CoA >>> Immo >>>> Drian Life Right now I'm running 1085 shadow dmg with fel armor 16.48% crit 10238 hp with imp and 8388 mana can I get some suggestions on how to max. my dps but still able to pvp when I want to? Thank You | ||||||||||||
| #654 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Answer is to read the first post, then if you *still* have questions, ask away. The first post imo answeres all your questions very well.
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| #655 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
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They generally work by taking your damage, and dividing it by your "in-combat" time. The problem is, this "in-combat" time is a totally fudged hack. It's the worst on gruul where everyone stops doing anything during shatters--your dots continue to tick so the parse reads you as in combat, but no one else. The result is that, while your damage is flatly higher because of the dots, your dps is flatly lower. This is true of any movement fight, but at your content level Gruul is the one where you see it the most. Moral of the story, only pay attention to damage, and never to any official DPS statistic. There are ways of cheesing it to increase your listed dps, but most of them end up with you doing less damage, not more. | ||||||||||||
| #656 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | clavarnway |
Disregard anything that says "DPS" on it, Affliction specs (which at your gear level is what Warlocks should be mostly) suffer the most because of what was said above. Just look at total damage done in relation to the other people. That's your role.
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| #657 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
"Average DPS" on WWS fixes the concerns with Affliction "Effective DPS". It takes total damage divided by total time alive for the fight which includes movement time.
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| #658 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Kobal |
Something completely unrelated...
On which fights - if any - do the 0/21/40 warlocks in your raid (have to) produce the Imp to buff raid hp? This does not count the one lock in the MT group that may have to bite the bullet because the affliction warlock(s) are unavailable for the night. We had a discussion in my raid very recently on this topic, and I would like to hear outside opinions. | ||||||||||||
| #659 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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| #660 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | richard |
Seconding Najentus, but can do without if your mages have decent gear. Possibly Bloodboil if you get stuck in a mage soaking group. It won't make or break the fight but it's worth losing 15% shadow damage over especially since you easily get threatcapped without it anyway.
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| #661 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | kunksmoor |
There was an Illidan tanking gear question before.
I don't think there is a need for full sr. I went through ally my last months wws parses to check the exact numbers. I always go with 4 crafted parts(excl the leggings) + neck which leaves me at 321 sr buffed and lets me keep 4 t6. I never got hit for more than 8400 (luck?). In most cases the max hit for the entire fight doesn't exeed 7.5k. It also allowes me maintain a very decent dps through entire fight and aggro for the demon phase so everyone in reach can nuke their hearts out without any worries. Also, I have never died to shadowblasts when tanking(credits to the healers), have chugged a hs/healthpot on rare occasions to be on the safe side though. Am I the only one that dares to wear less than full sr? What's the theoretical chance for me to get a completely nonresisted hit? I remember getting a 10k+ max hit a couple of months ago during learning the fight when i tried tanking without the neck(281 sr). | ||||||||||||
| #662 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
With maxed resist afaik you have 1% chance to take full damage. Any less resistance and that chance goes up.
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| #663 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | rochan |
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| #664 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | dakalro |
Afaik in TBC 248 resist buffed removes any chance of ever taking a full hit, at least so it was theorized in some thread around here, prolly too well burried to even try to dig it up
Also, I don't use quite maxed SR but keep 4 pcs t6, 194 hit (Scryer Bloodgem ftw ))) ) but also getting paid to respec demo each week so really can't comment that much since I got it easy, as in I do whatever it takes to not die, my dps is irrelevant in a 25 min enrage fight. Last edited by dakalro : 12/18/07 at 12:47 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #665 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Dreadnor12 |
Ello everybody.
I have a question, and my guild leader recommended me to these forums. Its been a long thread, and i must admit i didn't look at every page.. Nevertheless, i have a question regarding dmg, crit, & consumables. At the moment, i am Destruction (3/5 tier 6, waiting for the 4th piece ^_^). W/ dmg gear, i have +1302 (+1382 shadow dmg when blessings deck is procced fully) shadow dmg, 28% chance crit (self buffed, no consumables) W/ crit gear, i have +1234 shadow dmg, 32.06% chance to crit (self buffed, no consumables) At my current situation, i have many choices when it comes to consumables. Ultimately, the questions comes down to A) whats the healthiest balance of crit/dmg for a destruction warlock? and B) which consumables result in the most benefit to dmg output? I have access to: 1) +20 crit rating food (skullfish soup) or 2) +23 spell dmg food (blackened basilisk) 2) +23 crit & dmg elixir (Adpet elixir) or +80 spell dmg (Flask of Pure Death) I'm hoping somebody here has experience with the topic of dmg & crit, and consumables. I would've started my own thread, however i have to post 10 times in public forums to even do so. | ||||||||||||
| #666 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Evidicus |
What I've experienced recently is that a high crit rate (30% or so) can actually be detrimental on some fights unless you have the benefit of not only Salvation but also the Tranquil Air totem. I know I don't always get the benefit of the uber caster group (shadow priest and elemental shaman), and even if I did I would get a 3% crit bonus to go along with TA anyway. I know I plan on swapping out gear to actually lower my crit to about 25%-27% or so, which should also buff my spell damage by a fair amount. This should maximize not only my personal DPS but my ISB contribution as well (can't very well keep ISB up if you can't cast Shadow Bolts because of threat spikes).
Given that, I would suggest wearing your damage gear and using damage consumables. I know that is what I plan on doing. | ||||||||||||
| #667 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
I recommend checking the spreadsheet for concrete answers regarding stat choices. However the options you're deciding between trade more spell damage for less crit rating. The original post also has a "general" guideline for ordering stat values and spell damage will almost always beat crit rating point for point.
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| #668 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
Haste undervalued for affliction locks?
My question: how accurately is haste rating modeled for affliction locks on a stand-and-cast fight using the Leulier spreadsheet? It's a long post, you've been warned.
The Leulier spreadsheet determines overall damage by calculating ratios of spells cast instead of developing a casting timeline (which some might call a casting rotation). According to the spreadsheet, spell haste simply reduces the cast time of shadowbolt, thereby increasing the number of shadowbolts that are cast relative to other spells that are cast. However, I believe that faster shadowbolts may have a more pronounced effect for an affliction lock who uses shadowbolts as a filler between dot casts. It's widely accepted that a warlock should constantly be casting.. so if a dot will not expire before the casting time for that dot is up, then it's best to use a shadowbolt to fill until the dot has expired. It seems to me that faster shadowbolts should reduce the average time between when a dot ends and when a dot is refreshed. Example: Assume that siphon life will expire in 1s. The warlock casts shadowbolt which takes 2.5s to cast. After 1s siphon life will expire but the warlock has 1.5s of shadowbolt cast left. When the shadowbolt is cast the warlock refreshes siphon life. If the warlock's shadowbolt takes 2.4s to cast, then the period of time when siphon life is down is only 1.4s instead of 1.5s. I couldn't think of a way of integrating this change into the spreadsheet since I don't know how pronounced it is. I suspect it may be something to the effect of total haste increases your average dot uptime by the same percentage that it reduces spell cast time (this can't be true because otherwise you could get to 100% uptime with a reasonable amount of haste which just isn't possible). I wrote a casting simulator to get an idea of the magnitude of the effect. It simulates casts over a given period of time. It works using a simple priority system.. if ua isn't up, cast it.. if ua is up but will end in less than 1.5+lag seconds, recast it.. if corruption isn't up, cast it.. if sl isn't up, cast it.. if everything else is up, then cast a shadowbolt. I created a simulator because it's hard to model the effect of resists on a casting cycle.. without resists you would always cast corruption immediately after UA. Resists will break up this "cycle" and provide more accurate results. The following conditions are set: .1s of lag 2.5s base shadowbolt before haste casting priority: ua > corr > sl > sb no lifetap / dark pact included (this mucks things up a bit, I realize) each fight simulation is 600s (10 mins) 1800 fights simulated for each % of haste from 0 to 10 Format of the results: Haste % UA uptime as a percent Co uptime as a percent SL uptime as a percent shadowbolts cast in a 600s time period Haste: 0.0 UA up: 90.6 Co up: 90.6 SL up: 94.6 SBs: 179.0 Haste: 1.0 UA up: 91.3 Co up: 91.3 SL up: 95.2 SBs: 181.0 Haste: 2.0 UA up: 92.1 Co up: 92.0 SL up: 95.9 SBs: 182.0 Haste: 3.0 UA up: 92.8 Co up: 92.8 SL up: 96.5 SBs: 184.0 Haste: 4.0 UA up: 93.6 Co up: 93.5 SL up: 93.5 SBs: 185.0 Haste: 5.0 UA up: 94.3 Co up: 94.3 SL up: 94.3 SBs: 187.0 Haste: 6.0 UA up: 90.7 Co up: 90.5 SL up: 94.4 SBs: 190.0 Haste: 7.0 UA up: 91.4 Co up: 91.2 SL up: 91.8 SBs: 192.0 Haste: 8.0 UA up: 92.1 Co up: 92.0 SL up: 92.5 SBs: 194.0 Haste: 9.0 UA up: 92.9 Co up: 92.8 SL up: 93.4 SBs: 197.0 Haste: 10.0 UA up: 93.6 Co up: 93.5 SL up: 93.6 SBs: 197.0 The number of shadowbolts increases regardless of the amount of additional haste. As a trend, uptime of the dots increases with additional haste until 5% and drops down to the 0% haste uptime levels around 6% haste (probably because of the constant .1s lag). 5% haste seems to be about the sweet spot for these conditions.. with a 4.4% increase in number of shadowbolts and a 4.1% increase in UA/Co uptime. Doing some back-of-the-envelope math.. let's say a warlock does 50% damage from shadowbolts, 20% from UA, 20% from corruption, and 10% from SL. The spreadsheet would count 5% haste as 5% more shadowbolt damage (slightly less since the time gap between life taps will be slightly less)... so 5% haste would be a 2.5% increase in total damage. If we use the numbers generated from the simulation and count additional uptime as a linear increase in damage, then 5% haste would increase overall dps by 3.84%. Like I've said, it's a crude estimate and the numbers are likely to change when factoring in ISB, nightfall, curses, and taps, but I do believe it's significant enough to try to somehow incorporate into the spreadsheet. My hunch is that spell haste is undervalued for affliction locks on the Leulier spreadsheet by 25-50%. Thoughts? | ||||||||||||
| #669 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Currently DoT-gap is modeled as a single constant parameter rather than a calculated function, so if you really think it changes that much you could fiddle with the number itself as you get better haste. Your models provide a good baseline for what numbers to toss in. The DoT-gap probably could be modeled as a calculated paramter if you wanted to. A first approximation would be one-half of shadowbolt cast time, a more complicated model would probably include DoT resist rates. With the new casting mechanics the DoT-gap probably is a result of casting cycles whereas it used to be a result of human lag time, so its worth looking into.
In a realistic situation I suspect that it's appropriately undervalued because DoTs (aside from immo/UA) can be cast while mobile, which precludes shadowbolt clipping anyways. Of course, the spreadsheet is intended only to model brick-wall dps anyways so it's probably something that should be worked on. I'm still a little fuzzy on 2.3 casting mechanics--does the human error factor into lag? Or does some sort of queue system deal away with that entirely if you're within some acceptable margin? | ||||||||||||
| #670 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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The other thing that I've wondered about is the effect of haste on unstable affliction.. I've never understood the haste mechanic well enough to wrap my head around this. I know that spell haste doesn't affect the GCD, so in perfect conditions reducing the cast time of UA doesn't help since you're limited by the GCD. However, if lag makes your UA effectively a 1.6s cast is there any value in reducing the UA cast time to 1.4s so that it's 1.5s with lag? I guess the question can better be phrased: are cast times and the GCD both affected by lag or just cast times? | ||||||||||||
| #671 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bandoer |
Does your model account for Damage Per Cast Time loss at the end of the fight? i.e. you should not recast Corruption with 8 sec left in the fight and whatnot. On a 600 sec fight that can be a percentage or two uptime discrpancy. Not that I think uptime is that important anyway.
As an aside, regarding the OP, I think saying to "maximize your Damage Per Cast Time" is materially different than the tip under affliction that says something like "get all dots up and then shadowbolt". :P | ||||||||||||
| #672 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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For me as a destro lock who spams Shadowbolt, haste barely beats +damage, and I won't stack too much of it. After the first minute I basically have a LT + 4xSB rotation, and haste doesn't speed up that lifetap. As affliction, nearly half the time you're casting spells that don't even benefit from haste. Most affliction warlocks also use Immolate, which does not benefit either. Haste is nice because it makes your spells land faster. It's convenient when fearing, banishing, and in 5 mans. But for consistent dps on bosses, haste sucks compared to other stats for affliction. And most haste pieces have just that: haste and +damage. No hit or crit. Although I have to admit, hit is a tad overrated as wel, on the end game gear. I'm currently trying to find ways of ditching my excessive +hit, since I'm far over the cap with an elemental shaman. | ||||||||||||
| #673 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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| #674 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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| #675 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
Without accounting for the Felguard, Cursed Bones is better overall for any spec vs Ritssyn's.
The version 1.17 Warlock spreadsheet accounts for the extra 11 AP the Felguard gains when it gives stat weights. In addition, spell haste makes 2 Tier 5 stronger (since you cast more SB in the same amount of time). It is up to you which is better, but it is a close call either way. | ||||||||||||
| #676 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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I believe that spell haste is still a fairly poorly understood dynamic so I'm hoping that my investigation into its non-intuitive effects may shed some light on its usefulness outside of single-spell-spam. | ||||||||||||
| #677 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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I was merely pointing out that even for me, as destro, I barely value haste higher than +damage. For affliction it ought to be much, much lower due to only a few of the spells you use being affected by it. To answer your question: I haven't done any modeling that's not already covered by the spreadsheet for affliction warlocks. But here's a quick model: Get 10% casting speed reduction. Shadow bolts are now 0.25s faster. On average, you'll gain half of that when refreshing a dot. Gain on corruption: 0.125seconds average per 18seconds, or less than one percent. For longer dots it's worse. This is with 10% (about 175 haste) which is quite substantial. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, this shows that dot uptime increase is negligible. 175+ damage would gain you around 7-10% extra damage, in comparison. | ||||||||||||
| #678 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Morwen |
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My understanding of the cast mechanics is the following timeline: 0.0 - hit the key, GCD starts, cast request sent to server 0.0+latency - server acknowledges cast request 0.0+2*latency - cast bar pops up on client 1.5 - GCD completes on client, you are allowed to hit another key, so you do at time T>1.5 0.0+latency+castlength - cast completes on server T+latency - server acknowledges second cast request. If this is "sufficiently close" to the event where the previous cast completes on the server, then this cast will get "queued" and will be considered to have been cast as soon as the actual moment the previous cast finished. It feels like "sufficiently close" is currently +/- 100ms or so, the mechanics haven't been quite stable since the patch and I'm not aware of any recent rigorous tests on much exact room there is to hit the second cast on time. In any case if the timeline holds true then all that matters is T, which doesn't depend on latency or cast length, only on how frequently you physically hit the key. | ||||||||||||
| #679 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
While the haste effect on dot uptime is small, I wouldn't call it ignoreable. If 10% haste increases DPS by 5% via increasing shadowbolt DPS and increases dot uptime by 1%, it's a total 6% dps increase instead of 5%. Also there's another second order correction of haste increasing the % shadowbolts are of your damage, thus the more haste you have the more effect it will have. Then again another correction is the more haste you have the more lifetaps/dark pacts you cast which means less benefit from haste... Overall you need to sum up everything to get something more accurate than the first-order "50% shadowbolt dmg therefore 10% haste is 5% DPS increase", which is probably not far off but from a spreadsheet prespective a 1% error is not neglicible.
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| #680 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
If we take the case where every time all DoTs and Curses are up a Shadow Bolt is started, then close to every time a DoT or Curse expires, you will be in the middle of a Shadow Bolt cast. Given a long enough fight the distribution of those expirations should fall evenly across all parts of the Shadow Bolt, so each DoT on average suffers half a shadow bolt (plus lag) of downtime per expiration.
To make the spreadsheet take this into account for "the next stat" section, simply change the 'avg dot gap' to =D23/2 on both the 'DPS' and 'TNS-haste' sheets. Note: This is the maximum gap that occurs due to shadow bolt overlap. That gap is shortened if the player chooses to LT/DP during some windows to minimize the downtime. Responding to some of the previous posts: just because haste may be less useful to an affliction warlock doesn't mean they shouldn't understand the value it gives. | ||||||||||||
| #681 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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Let me say one more time for emphasis.. I'm NOT saying that haste is better than damage or hit. I'm saying the spreadsheet is not accounting for all of the ways that spell haste CAN improve damage and therefore undervalues its contribution to overall damage. ![]()
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Here's a similar situation.. assume the spreadsheet didn't actually change the ISB uptime when you added additional crit. The spreadsheet would tell you that crit improves DPS by less than it actually does because it's not factoring in that additional ISB time. It doesn't mean that crit is better than spell damage or spell hit or whatever.. it just means the spreadsheet is incorrectly accounting for the mechanic. Last edited by Idk : 12/18/07 at 8:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #682 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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In general I think your spreadsheet changes are an appropriate approximation of the effect. I do believe, however, that your assumption "Given a long enough fight the distribution of those expirations should fall evenly across all parts of the Shadow Bolt" is incorrect. The reason is that even though there are random effects like resists, the limited number of actions that can be performed all have regular cast times and intervals between cast times (assuming lag isn't in the picture). The GCD is always 1.5s, the UA cast time is always 1.5s, the UA and Corr durations are always 18s, the SL duration is always 30s, and the SB cast is a fixed time based on your spell haste. Since the chunks are consistent (and all happen to be multiples of .5 except the shadowbolt) I do believe that certain cast times of shadowbolt will fit into the gaps better than others. I don't have the math to support this but I do believe that my model demonstrates it. Note how dot uptime for the 18s spells increases from 0% haste to 5% and drops down by 6%.. then increases again up to 10%. Is this way too theoretical to actually be useful in determining real world damage? Probably... but I do find it interesting. | ||||||||||||
| #683 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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| #684 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Everything is a multiple of 0.5, but with a variable DoT order which multiple of 0.5 you're going to be displaced by varies considerably--IF the 2.3 casting mechanics mean that everything lines up nice like that in the first place. Being uniformly distributed across the 5 multiples of 0.5 is statistically equivalent to being uniformly distributed across the entire interval for our purposes. And of course, as trickykid said, as soon as you add haste in there everything goes to pot and you basically end up with a continuous uniform distribution regardless of lag mechanics and casting cycle.
However, that's assuming a naive casting cycle, which is what I think Idk was actually getting at. If your mana pool is not within one lifetap of either full or empty, you can spread around your lifetaps strategically to decrease DoT-gap. Specifically, if one of your DoTs is falling off you can choose to either DoT now and have an action up in 1.5s followed by a shadowbolt, or shadowbolt now, have an action in 2.5s, and lifetap afterwards. Both orders end up with the same spells cast and net man cost, but one of them nudges the DoT up by 1.0 seconds. You can also nudge the DoT back by 1.0 seconds if it wouldn't be quite done following a lifetap. So while a constant lifetap/shadowbolt order will pretty much always have a DoT-gap of one-half your average spell cast time (average of spell cast times weighted by spell cast measure), that's more of a worst-case scenario which a skilled warlock can improved on by up to 0.5 seconds on average by forecasting 2.5 seconds and planning shadowbolts/lifetaps accordingly. It might be possible to further improve that by forecasting further ahead than one tick or one cast (ie two lifetaps vs 1 shadowbolt to nudge the action timing by 0.5 seconds) but the returns on doing so drop off after about three GCDs of forecasting (by which point you can control to the 0.5s), and larger forecast horizons requires a larger and larger mana buffer on both ends, increasing linearly. Assuming you're at 50% health, 50% mana, and completely flexible in your cast cycle (ie lifetap/DoT distribution not dictated by movement) you should be able to control within 0.5s when you refresh your DoTs for an averge gap of 0.25s while maintaining steady-state dps, unless two DoTs overlap which can't be strategized out of. Once you add haste into the equation the dynamics of forecasting get a lot messier because things don't line up as nice. In theory it might lower your DoT-gap under ideal circumstances but the calculations become disgusting. | ||||||||||||
| #685 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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You claimed the spreadsheet doesn't model haste well, because it only models added SBs, it does not compute increased uptime. I calculated that this uptime gain is significantly less than 1% for even an absurd amount of haste like 175. I considered this fairly insignificant compared to the current calculated gain from haste. You disagree with this last bit. Can we agree on these points? - yes, it's missing. - It's very complex to model or calculate, for small values player timing/lag is obviously much more significant - when modeled with a high amount of haste we get a very small gain in dot uptime - affliction warlocks will not try to stack haste, but will occasionally get it anyway because loot drops are random. In order to answer your question: no, the spreadsheet doesn't model it. Haste does a lot of things a spreadsheet can't model anyway: faster fears, banishes, and spells in general. For example, even though immolate/UA is GCD capped, having haste makes you finish them faster, allowing you to move sooner. We can add "increases dot uptime" to the list. Players should value it a bit higher than what the spreadsheet says, because of this. | ||||||||||||
| #686 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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I'm not saying that this problem requires an equal amount of effort as the ISB uptime models, but I don't understand why it's being dismissed as insignificant without further investigation. My model shows me that haste has a pronounced effect on dot uptime that goes much further than reducing the average dot gap by 50% of the cast time reduction of shadowbolt. I want to be SHOWN why my model is wrong.. not simply told that it is without any evidence to support it. I have a set of gear with 4.88% haste that i use when I'm playing destro. I'll try to do some Dr. Boom testing to see if my model comes even close to real world testing. Last edited by Idk : 12/19/07 at 3:00 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #687 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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- allows you to get Shadow Bolts in. We agree on this. It is already modeled. - allows you to casts finished quicker, which can be very beneficial on mobile fights or other tasks. We agree on this. It is not modeled. - will allow you to alter your spell choice so you can cast more dots instead of Shadow Bolts, increasing your damage per casting time. We agree on this, but are disputing the significance of this particular factor. Would it be hard to add any of the following to the damage simulation? - lifetaps/darkpact - Immolate (unless you're not using this because of lower dps, but make sure to state so) - damage output - haste rating instead of hasted casting speed (as this is not linear, statwise) This would at least give you a rough estimate of how far the spreadsheet is off. | ||||||||||||
| #688 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bolche |
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But it is obvious that the cast time or your filler spell (and thus haste) as an impact on your dot uptime. When tanking and spaming searing pain, I know that (once aggro is OK) I can maintain an almost perferct dot uptime, thanks to the 1.5s cast time of SP. It seems logical that reducing the cast time by X second does reduce the average dot gap by X/2. So to take into account in this in "the next stat" section while leting the user choose what it wants for the dot gap, I can set the dot gap in the TNS-haste section to : dot_gap - 'filler cast time reduction'/2 In the .xls doc it translates into : =DPS!J10-(DPS!E24-E24)/2 By the way, if you have some suggestions for the spreadsheet, please post them into the dedicated topic ((another) Warlock DPS Spreadsheet). | ||||||||||||
| #689 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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As far as excluding immolate, that was a personal decision based on the fact that I rarely use it.. in the raids that I regularly run I'm the only warlock, there's a shadow priest, and no mages. I just can't justify the cast. I can, however, include immolate in the model quite easily. My plan is to make it the lowest priority dot. | ||||||||||||
| #690 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Even without CoE/Scorch and with CoS and Shadow Weaving, it might do more damage-per-casting-time than SB, with your spec. Just plug it in the spreadsheet or run ShadowSeer and see what comes out. If it's close enough to Shadow Bolt, my guess is you can use it to improve on DPS since it's a 1.5s cast option, usable to improve dot uptime for reasons you stated earlier. | ||||||||||||
| #691 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
I've extended the functionality of my model to include:
- immolate - lifetap (I arbitrarily chose 2000 mana per tap and 8000 max mana) - reduced casting time of immo and ua with haste (even though GCD remains the same) - changed from haste to haste rating using the following formula (let me know if this is incorrect): base cast / (1.0 + (haste_rating/1570)) + lag The really fascinating thing that has come out of this is seeing how lifetap affects the casting timeline. I've tried a variety of methods to improve general dot uptime, with some being more successful than others. This is what I've settled on for the moment: If we have less than 1000 mana, lifetap (I sampled with 500, 1000, and 1500 for the "dangerously low on mana" threshold.. and found 1000 to be the best). If UA isn't up, cast it If UA is going to be up in less than ua cast + lag time, recast it If Corr isn't up, cast it If SL isn't up, cast it If Immo isn't up, cast it If Immo is going to be up in less than immo cast + lag time, recast it Consider a preemptive lifetap: if any dot has more duration left than that dot's cast time (or the gcd) but less duration than the cast of a shadowbolt AND the current mana pool is more than 1 lifetap from being full, cast a preemptive lifetap. Otherwise, cast a shadowbolt I'm now cycling through haste rating from 0 to 105 in increments of 15 (arbitrary numbers) trying to generate enough data to feel confident. What I find interesting is that the variability between simulations of the same haste rating is very small. I think this is a good thing. | ||||||||||||
| #692 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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| #693 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | manupod |
Ok I have a couple questions to ask of you guys & gals. Just to touch on some of the Curse & Trinket discussions.
Ok the first thing I'd love to have cleared up is about trinkets in relation to when their effects are applied or available to be applied to spells. Example: I open up a fight like Lurker with Amplify Curse > CoD > Pop Icon of the Silver Cresent > UA > Corruption > Immolate > SB SB SB and so forth. (Assuming I'm not on CoE/S duty of course) What's confusing is the trinket use. I understand (maybe wrongly) that trinkets don't effect AC and CoD. So am I right by doing my CoD first? My second thing I'm confused about is CoE/S use. I usually apply CoE/S before applying DoTs. I do it for two reasons, but here's the reason I'm not sure makes sense: CoE/S won't affect my own DoTs if my DoTs went up before the Curse. Is that true? Or does it not matter? I know it doesn't matter too much unless I'm being min/max about it but it's just been bugging me and I figured I'd ask. Any input is appreciated. And apologies in advance if this is breaking any flow of conversation going on. | ||||||||||||
| #694 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Why would trinket not affect CoD? Afaik CoD is affected by spell damage, and trinket is no different. Spell damage effect is determined when the spell leaves your hands. Why do you CoD though? As affliction you *should* be the malediction "bitch" with 13% CoS let a destruction warlock do CoD since he doesn't have malediction (or better, CoR and CoE so only CoD if you have more than 3 warlocks in a raid and/or don't have at least 2 fire/frost mages and/or the fight does not allow use of CoR).
Afaik CoS needs to be active when your DoT ticks, so casting it right after the DoTs should work. Remember though if at least 2 other shadow users started to DPS at least 1.5s before you did, CoS first will yield more raid DPS. In optimal situations though the curse should come after the UA+corruption. | ||||||||||||
| #695 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
CoD is affected by trinkets. Since it's coefficient is so large (200%) it actually gets the most use out of your trinket than any of your spells. While this coefficient is small relative to its duration that has no effect on how much extra damage you get out of the crescent use.
DoT spell damage from gear and caster buffs gets locked in on cast, but mob debuffs are reevaluated each tick. Assuming every other shadow caster in your raid also leads off with DoTs you can increase your DoT uptime, and therefore damage, by doing UA corr CoS, with no disadvantage. Longer than that and you start having DoTs tick without it. | ||||||||||||
| #696 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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CoD gets 200% bonus, more than any other spell. Trinkets are very beneficial with CoD. CoD damage = 4200 + 2 * spellpower. I think you're confused because amp curse only affects the base damage. So trinkets don't affect the boost given by Amplify Curse: Amped CoD = 6300 + 2 * spellpower. Note that CoD is not affected by Shadow Mastery, for reasons unknown. | ||||||||||||
| #697 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | manupod |
Great replies there, and thank you for clearing that up. Of course I CoS/E most of the time, but the example I gave with CoD was just that, an example. Don't think I'm greedy and CoD all the time =)
I think it's best explained by exactly what you said, where it's re-evaluated every DoT tick. I'll definitely be changing up some of my rotations for certain fights now. Again, thanks a bunch! Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion... | ||||||||||||
| #698 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | t0qt4u |
Is the Warlock DPS Calculator reliable? If so, I've tested most of the specs through it, and am curious to know if someone can find a spec with the most DPS.
Last edited by t0qt4u : 12/20/07 at 3:01 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #699 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
EDIT: added some damage numbers to get an idea of overall change of damage.
Results from my model. They're interesting.. still not quite sure what to make of them. To recap: Assumptions: 8000 mana lifetap returns 2000 mana no cataclysm .1s of lag no curses or soulshatter 1% resist chance 600s of modeled combat stand and cast (no movement) ~850 simulated combats per chunk of haste rating (this model is much slower to calculate than the old one) Picked some approximate damage numbers, these could be more precise I'm sure.. but since they stay constant across all measures of haste they should be a decent approximation of damage difference from haste: ua: 4000 damage co: 4000 damage sl: 3000 damage immo: 1500 damage sb: 3000 damage Priority of actions: If we have less than 1000 mana, lifetap (I sampled with 500, 1000, and 1500 for the "dangerously low on mana" threshold.. and found 1000 to be the best). If UA isn't up, cast it If UA is going to be up in less than ua cast + lag time, recast it If Corr isn't up, cast it If SL isn't up, cast it If Immo isn't up, cast it If Immo is going to be up in less than immo cast + lag time, recast it Consider a preemptive lifetap: if any dot has more duration left than that dot's cast time (or the gcd) but less duration than the cast of a shadowbolt AND the current mana pool is more than 1 lifetap from being full, cast a preemptive lifetap. Otherwise, cast a shadowbolt The format of the results: Haste: haste rating UA up: percentage of unstable affliction uptime Co up: percentage of corruption uptime SL up: percentage of siphon life uptime Im up: percentage of immolate uptime SBs: number of shadowbolts cast LTs: number of life taps preemp: percentage of life taps that were cast preemptively.. that is, lifetaps that were used to reduce the time between dot expiration and dot refresh where a shadowbolt would have caused a larger gap needed: percentage of life taps that were cast because mana was less than 1000 total: total damage done change: ratio of total damage done with this amount of haste vs. total damage with no haste The results for haste rating of 0 to 157 in increments of 15.7 (so it should be approx. 0-10%): --- Haste: 0.0 UA up: 94.8 Co up: 94.5 SL up: 95.5 Im up: 86.0 SBs: 127.0 LTs: 48.0 preemp: 57.3 needed: 42.7 total: 742300.0 change: 1.0 Haste: 15.7 UA up: 95.5 Co up: 95.2 SL up: 94.6 Im up: 86.9 SBs: 127.0 LTs: 48.0 preemp: 71.3 needed: 28.7 total: 744167.0 change: 1.0025 Haste: 31.4 UA up: 96.0 Co up: 95.7 SL up: 95.0 Im up: 87.4 SBs: 128.0 LTs: 49.0 preemp: 71.4 needed: 28.6 total: 749040.0 change: 1.0091 Haste: 47.1 UA up: 95.5 Co up: 95.4 SL up: 94.8 Im up: 83.7 SBs: 131.0 LTs: 49.0 preemp: 51.9 needed: 48.1 total: 754633.0 change: 1.0166 Haste: 62.8 UA up: 95.9 Co up: 95.8 SL up: 95.2 Im up: 84.2 SBs: 131.0 LTs: 49.0 preemp: 51.3 needed: 48.7 total: 756240.0 change: 1.0188 Haste: 78.5 UA up: 93.0 Co up: 92.7 SL up: 96.4 Im up: 85.9 SBs: 133.0 LTs: 49.0 preemp: 67.3 needed: 32.7 total: 755980.0 change: 1.0184 Haste: 94.2 UA up: 93.6 Co up: 93.4 SL up: 96.4 Im up: 80.3 SBs: 134.0 LTs: 49.0 preemp: 53.0 needed: 47.0 total: 757353.0 change: 1.0203 Haste: 109.9 UA up: 93.6 Co up: 93.5 SL up: 94.6 Im up: 87.1 SBs: 135.0 LTs: 50.0 preemp: 51.0 needed: 49.0 total: 763487.0 change: 1.0285 Haste: 125.6 UA up: 94.1 Co up: 93.9 SL up: 95.0 Im up: 87.2 SBs: 135.0 LTs: 50.0 preemp: 50.5 needed: 49.5 total: 764987.0 change: 1.0306 Haste: 141.3 UA up: 94.5 Co up: 94.4 SL up: 95.4 Im up: 87.7 SBs: 136.0 LTs: 50.0 preemp: 50.7 needed: 49.3 total: 769727.0 change: 1.0369 Haste: 157.0 UA up: 95.0 Co up: 94.9 SL up: 95.9 Im up: 88.4 SBs: 136.0 LTs: 50.0 preemp: 50.7 needed: 49.3 total: 771780.0 change: 1.0397 Last edited by Idk : 12/20/07 at 8:27 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #700 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Immolate does 942 base and gets 85% from spellpower. Shadow Bolt does 575 base and gets 85.7% from spellpower. There is no way one can do 1500 and the other 3000. Even when you account for crits, and the fact that SB gets 10% extra damage through Shadow Mastery. Not even with no Coe/Imp Scorch and Shadoweaving. I'd recommend going in the game and tossing each of these spells on a target and see how much they do and using those values. I'll also PM you some bits of code that have coefficients, if you're so inclined. It would allow you to determine the dps increase given by extra spellpower, too, in your simulations. 8000 mana seems very low, but that should hardly matter. 10000 would probably be more realistic in a raid scenario, where you have AI and MOTW. ![]()
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| #701 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | DamnDirtyApe |
Idk, your simulation's priorities will inevitably lead to immolate durations of 18 seconds. At some point during the simulation, you will cast UA then corruption then immolate. Assmuing all of these hit, they will all expire at the same time. When this happens your simulated warlock will cast UA again, then corruption again, refreshing these exactly on time but delaying the immolate refresh by 3 seconds. This will continue to happen as long as all of the dots hit and siphon life does not interfere. I have seen this happen in my affliction raiding experience and my solution has been to refresh immolate early, before refreshing UA and corruption.
Of course this is moot if you find that your shadow bolt DPCT is higher than your immolate DPCT. | ||||||||||||
| #702 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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0: begin ua 1.5: cast ua, cast cor, set timer for 19.5, begin gcd 3: gcd ends, cast sl, begin gcd 4.5 gcd ends, begin sb 7: cast sb, begin immo 8.5: cast immo, set timer for 23.5, begin sb 11: cast sb, begin sb 13.5: cast sb, begin sb 16: cast sb, begin sb 18.5: cast sb, begin ua 19.5: ua runs out, co runs out 20: cast ua, cast co, begin gcd (.5s downtime of ua and co) 21.5: gcd up, lifetap, begin gcd 23: gcd ends, begin immo 23.5: immo ends 24.5: cast immo (1s downtime of immo) Your point about UA, Co, Immo makes sense.. I've even brought up that very same point in one of these warlock threads. However, I think I remember that "typical" cycle getting mucked up by lag. Let me see what it looks like on the model. I'll post results here. | ||||||||||||
| #703 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gaborn |
The best solution is to start with Immolate. That alone will desyncronize your dots.
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| #704 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
This first chunk is the first 24s (plus the full summary of the 600s simulation) of a standard run of the casting model with no dot resists... priority: ua => co => sl => im. Note that Immolate is down for 2.8s after its first full run, this is even with the casting gcd of sl in between ua/co and immo:
0.0: begin ua 1.6: cast ua 1.6: cast co 3.2: cast sl 4.8: begin im 6.4: cast im 6.4: begin sb 9.0: cast sb 9.0: begin sb 11.6: cast sb 11.6: begin sb 14.2: cast sb 14.2: begin sb 16.8: cast sb 16.8: begin sb 19.4: cast sb 19.4: begin ua 19.6: end ua 19.6: end co 21.0: cast ua 21.0: cast co 21.4: end im 22.6: begin im 24.2: cast im ... ua: 32 0.944998 0.0 co: 32 0.942332 0.0 sl: 20 0.950998 0.0 im: 34 0.842665 0.0 sb: 129 0.031 sb: 129 4 lt: 48 preemptive: 0.479167 needed: 0.520833 --- I tried a quick little hack of the cycle I mentioned in the previous post.. for the first set of casts, do a shadowbolt between the first SL and the first Immo. I ran the simulation until I got an output with no dot resists just like the previous. Note that the first immo dot refresh is almost perfect (only .2s downtime!) But by the 2nd full run of immolate (around 39s into combat) 3.4s goes by between the end of immo and when it's finally recast: 0.0: begin ua 1.6: cast ua 1.6: cast co 3.2: cast sl 4.8: begin cycle-setting sb 7.4: cast sb 7.4: begin im 9.0: cast im 9.0: begin sb 11.6: cast sb 11.6: begin sb 14.2: cast sb 14.2: begin sb 16.8: cast sb 16.8: begin sb 19.4: cast sb 19.4: begin ua 19.6: end ua 19.6: end co 21.0: cast ua 21.0: cast co 22.6: begin im 24.0: end im 24.2: cast im 24.2: begin sb 26.8: cast sb 26.8: begin sb 29.4: cast sb 29.4: begin sb 32.0: cast sb 32.0: cast tap: 1800 33.2: end sl 33.6: cast sl 35.2: begin sb 37.8: cast sb 37.8: begin ua 39.0: end ua 39.0: end co 39.2: end im 39.4: cast ua 39.4: cast co 41.0: begin im 42.6: cast im ... ua: 32 0.944998 0.0 co: 32 0.942332 0.0 sl: 20 0.950998 0.0 im: 34 0.842665 0.0 sb: 129 0.016 sb: 129 2 lt: 48 preemptive: 0.479167 needed: 0.520833 --- Uptime of the 4 dots from the first example: 94.5%, 94.2%, 95.1%, 84.3% Uptime of the 4 dots from the second example (the one with the cycle-setting sb): 94.5%, 94.2%, 95.1%, 84.2% The difference is marginal assuming similar lag conditions and resist conditions (we're already talking about a resist-free situation since that's when the UA => Co => Immo cycle isn't broken). In fact, immolate's uptime is even lower in the second cycle because it starts later. The problem is that immolate is the shortest dot of the cycle and the lowest priority.. it needs to be refreshed more often and other refreshes will always take precedence over it. You can adjust when the immolate timeline starts at the beginning of the fight but it's only a matter of time before immolate ends when another dot needs to be refreshed. You should always be making the decision to cast the highest DPCT spell that you can at any given moment (unless you can use that moment to tap favorably) and that often means letting immolate stay down while you refresh another, more important dot. There are only a few of ways that you can actually improve immolate uptime in the middle of a fight: 1. Refresh it before it expires. This hurts the DPCT and DPM of the spell and I'm not convinced that it's ever worth it. I'd need to see the math. 2. Make it a higher priority to refresh. This is a bad idea since its DPCT is typically lower than the other 3 dots. 3. Use lifetaps/darkpacts to adjust the casting timeline so that you never stop casting but the gaps between dot end and dot refresh are smaller. Of these, I believe that #3 is the only one that you can do without negatively affecting your overall dps.. this is because lifetaps must happen at some point in the casting cycle, but their timing is highly adjustable. | ||||||||||||
| #705 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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The following is a casting cycle that starts with an immolate and then follows the traditional priority system.. to keep things simple I've set it up to have no lag and no resists: 0.0: begin initial im 1.5: cast im 1.5: begin ua 3.0: cast ua 3.0: cast co 4.5: cast sl 6.0: begin sb 8.5: cast sb 8.5: begin sb 11.0: cast sb 11.0: begin sb 13.5: cast sb 13.5: begin sb 16.0: cast sb 16.0: begin im 16.5: end im 17.5: cast im 17.5: begin sb 20.0: cast sb 20.0: begin ua 21.0: end ua 21.0: end co 21.5: cast ua 21.5: cast co 23.0: begin sb 25.5: cast sb 25.5: begin sb 28.0: cast sb 28.0: begin sb 30.5: cast sb 30.5: cast tap: 1800 32.0: begin im 32.5: end im 33.5: cast im 33.5: cast tap: 3355 34.5: end sl 35.0: cast sl 36.5: begin sb 39.0: cast sb 39.0: begin ua 39.5: end ua 39.5: end co 40.5: cast ua 40.5: cast co 42.0: begin sb 44.5: cast sb 44.5: begin sb 47.0: cast sb 47.0: begin sb 48.5: end im 49.5: cast sb 49.5: begin im 51.0: cast im 51.0: begin sb 53.5: cast sb 53.5: begin sb 56.0: cast sb 56.0: begin sb 58.5: end ua 58.5: end co 58.5: cast sb 58.5: cast tap: 790 60.0: begin ua 61.5: cast ua 61.5: cast co 63.0: begin sb 65.0: end sl 65.5: cast sb 65.5: cast sl 66.0: end im 67.0: begin im 68.5: cast im By 51s we're having 2.5s go between the end of immo and the time that it starts again.. it only gets worse as the fight goes on. By the end, uptime of the 4 dots: 94.8%, 94.6%, 96.1%, 84.6% Compare that to not using the initial immo.. same deal with no resists, no lag: 95.1%, 95.1%, 96.8%, 86.1% Of course, this is a little unrealistic because it's assuming 0 lag.. just the summary results comparing the same two cycles, this time with .1s lag, no resists: start with an immolate then do standard priorities: 93%, 93%, 95%, 85% standard cycle: 94.5%, 94.2%, 95.1%, 84.3% --- Of course, all of this assumes that you trust my simulator. | ||||||||||||
| #706 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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UA: 4168 Co: 4358 SL: 3097 Im: 2118 SB: 2929 Re Immolate: The problem is that my typical raid has no CoE nor imp scorch and always has a shadow priest. On top of this, my affliction gear has close to 200 more shadow damage than fire damage. The DPCT of immolate is 1310 vs. 1129 of shadowbolt. Under these conditions it's a DPS loss for me to use immolate.. I presume because of the increased mana cost and reduced ISB uptime? Plugging the above damage numbers back into my calculator and simplified the format a little bit. This time we have haste rating, dps (just total damage over 600s), and change from 0% haste. For a baseline, the spreadsheet tells me that my total damage with .1s lag and 1.25s avg dot gap is 1281.60 with 0% haste. Haste: 0.0 dps: 1303.33 change: 0.0 Haste: 15.7 dps: 1306.99 change: 1.0028 Haste: 31.4 dps: 1315.47 change: 1.0093 Haste: 47.1 dps: 1323.16 change: 1.0152 Haste: 62.8 dps: 1326.17 change: 1.0175 Haste: 78.5 dps: 1325.59 change: 1.0171 Haste: 94.2 dps: 1325.77 change: 1.0172 Haste: 109.9 dps: 1338.75 change: 1.0272 Haste: 125.6 dps: 1341.43 change: 1.0292 Haste: 141.3 dps: 1349.69 change: 1.0356 Haste: 157.0 dps: 1353.56 change: 1.0385 For grins, the spreadsheet tells me that with 10% haste my dps is 1336.17 So the spreadsheet shows 10% haste as 4.25% damage increase.. my model shows it as 3.85%. So haste may in fact be _over_valued on the spreadsheet. Still don't think I know enough to say anything conclusive about haste => damage for affliction locks. | ||||||||||||
| #707 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gaborn |
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I thought it was clear. | ||||||||||||
| #708 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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"This is NOT true, for the same reasons as I stated above. Eventually your immolate dot will run into your ua/co dots and they'll take precedence on the refresh." It should read as: "This is NOT true, for the same reasons as I stated above. Eventually your immolate dot will expire at the same time as your UA and corruption dots. To maximize damage when this happens, the right thing to do is to refresh UA and Corruption and then refresh immolate.. even if this leaves a several second gap of immolate downtime." It doesn't matter when you launch your first immolate cast, over a relatively short period of time (less than a minute) your immolate will expire within a second UA and corruption. Last edited by Idk : 12/21/07 at 6:27 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #709 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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About immolate: makes sense to drop it, then. Weird, I figured affliction would always cast SB. I'll add something about it to the compendium. There are a few really good items that do only shadow damage: [Ritssyn's Lost Pendant], [Orb of the Soul-Eater], [Nethervoid Cloak], [Boots of the Shifting Nightmare] and the FSW, so it makes sense that warlocks run around doing with more +shadow damage over general spellpower. About haste for affliction: I think you've proven that haste should be valued at less than 50% of +damage for sustained damage, for affliction locks. Maybe it's worth using that simulator of yours to test a few other things? For example, it should be very easy for you now to figure out what dps gain you'd get with +157 spellpower, or what happens if you lose 5% hit. | ||||||||||||
| #710 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Shai |
How about adding Dr.Damage (http://www.wowace.com/wiki/DrDamage) to the tools/mods section of the first post?
It's useful for evaluating the effects of stats on spells directly in-game. Allows to manually add crit/hit etc. to the equipped gear, also scans for buffs and debuffs on mobs and applies the modifiers accordingly. It's only missing manual haste modification at the moment, something the author will hopefully add in the near future. | ||||||||||||
| #711 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Crepe |
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| #712 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
It's easier to test the spell hit than the spellpower.. mostly because the spellpower numbers are taken straight from the spreadsheet where spell hit is something that I control directly in the simulator. That said, I can still take 157 damage off the spreadsheet, get the spell damage numbers, and run the simulation.
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| #713 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Nikzor |
Just a little side note a nice macro for soulstoneing its pretty similar to the Vash macro and works good
/use Master Soulstone /script local coremsg = nil if (IsItemInRange("Master Soulstone","target") == 1) then coremsg = "SS on YOU" else coremsg = "Get closer for SS" end SendChatMessage(coremsg,"WHISPER","Orcish",UnitName("target")) (for horde change the orcish if you are alliance) | ||||||||||||
| #714 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Bias |
Hi, I'm loving this PVE Compedium and I'll just be adding to some of the discussion. I've had this damn uncertainty that's been bugging me for so long.
It's to do with the relative effectiveness of Spell Haste, especially to it's effectiveness vs Spell Crit. This is for 0/21/40 DS/SNF LOCKS ONLY. And for experiments sake, assume casting shadowbolts infinitely. The original poster says as a rough guide under destro : Spell hit > Spell crit / spell haste / spell dmg. I'm looking for an even more accurate heirachy. Putting item budgets aside, I just want to know what 1 spell haste rating is worth compared to 1 spell crit rating. I've looked into shadowpriest.com (SimulationCraft/Scaling/Warlock - Shadowpriest.com Wiki) and it says that with 1100+ dmg, 200 hit, 400 spell crit: 1 Spell Damage = 0.795 dps increase 1 Spell Haste Rating = 0.663 dps increase 1 Spell Crit Rating = 0.396 dps increase Even at lower spell crits, the order remains the same - Spell damage > Spell haste > Spell crit. Now, I've been going off on that working out which pieces of gear are an upgrade for me by simply doing multiplication of the differences of stats and seeing which item has a higher dps increase. I'd just like to know if anyone else apart from this shadowpriest.com guy has done any solid experiments to test spell haste out. I've been reading alot of opinionated theories like spell haste makes u go oom faster = more life tap = less dps, or spell haste is crap unless u stack it (which makes a little more sense) and so forth. What I'm requesting is if anyone out there knows the true relationship between spell haste/spell dmg/spell crit. Thanks in advance =). | ||||||||||||
| #715 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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The haste > crit is based on the stats you have when you obtain haste gear (which used to be MH/BT). 1400 spell power, 29% crit, max hit. That gave me a pretty convincing "haste beats crit" by about 10-20%. This is including ISB. Haste diminishes quite fast, however. It's all relative, though. As mentioned in the guide. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/22/07 at 7:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #716 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Tbonahydraxis |
0/41/20???
First time poster and many page reader here...I'm very sorry if this topic has been covered before and if it has, please refer me to the page as I cannot find this discussion in depth.
Long story short, Our guild is still running Kara for a few people but most all are geared for the next level. My character is Tbona on hydraxis and I'm bored stiff with affliction...have been it too long. I only respec to aff when I'm needed to help with Illhoof or some no show for a dps slot. Currently I'm 0/41/20 and love it. With my 'raiding' gear on I have 168 hit, and 24% crit, and 1216 spell damage (I'm at work, could be a smidge off. Items in possetion that may not be on armory are trinkets, spellstrike set, gladiators war staff and shifting probabilities cloak.) For Gruul's I do have a 202 hit set..just FYI How viable is 0/41/20 for the next level (SSC, etc.)? For pet non-friendly encounters, send him in and sacrifice at appropiate time, adding 10% spell damage and 2% mana, or saccy sac. By the spreadsheet I constantly show 0/41/20 in the running with 0/21/40 at my gear level. Anyone experienced with this? Or should I just suck it up and go with the old stand by 41/0/20>.<??? BTW we have 3 other warlocks(all affliction blends) and great healers. Any and all advice much appreciated. Thanks, T | ||||||||||||
| #717 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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From the top of my head: SSC: good: Hydross, Lurker, Leotheras, Karatress (can tank Leo!) good if 2p T5: Morogrim bad: Vashj TK: good: Al'ar, VR good if 2p T5: Kael'thas not sure: Solarian Hyjal: Most fights should be ok with demonology. BT: some fights will require 2p T5, other than that it should be fine. This is all from memory, there are good guides out there, there's one linked in the compendium and there's others on this forum. Do some research. I'm pretty sure a well played, well specced demonologist can be competitive on the meter. | ||||||||||||
| #718 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | quickquestion |
Quick question (as I don't have time to browse through 29 pages atm);
As 0/21/40, is it better to consistantly spam Shadowbolt even with Curse of Elements and full Scorch debuffs in a raid environment? (1201dmg/202hit/19.87%crit) Or would it be better to Immo -> SB and refresh Immolate during fades? | ||||||||||||
| #719 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
I just got my Skull the other day, and it raised a question about trinket usage. I've been using them together when doom is about to come off cooldown, but Skull's on-use effect doesn't affect the GCD for Doom. Would the ideal thing be to pop Icon, hit doom, then pop Skull and start spamming SB?
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| #720 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ frmorrison |
No amount of haste or Heroism will affect the GCD.
So your question is has the right scenario in it. | ||||||||||||
| #721 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ninielin |
Hi there.
Just a quick question. for a shadow specced destruction warlock. Is it better to get illidan staff ( zhar'doom I think its spelled? ) or tempest of chaos + rage offhand? Assuming hit is capped ( well really easy to hit the cap with T6 items). | ||||||||||||
| #722 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Afflictor |
i played around with the new version of leulier last night and i was surprised by the results.
my stats were 1600 +shadow ( this fully raid buffed with a shaman totem) 27% crit, 0%haste, hit capped. also 4pt6 and CSD enabled in the advance options. the results it gave me were that my next point of crit would be of the equivilent of 1.01 +dmg and the next point of haste 1.15 +dmg. is this information correct? i have always been led to believe that +dmg was always the best, at this level of gear do crit and haste start to pull ahead? Edit : 0/21/40 Last edited by Afflictor : 12/23/07 at 6:13 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #723 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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For your spec with your gear, I can confirm the statistics you're getting are correct. Damage about equal to crit, with haste being a tad better. I'm a bit below you and get around the same. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/23/07 at 7:51 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #724 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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Zhardoom + Cowl of the Illidari Highlord + 4 pc t6 is the optimal gearset. Vashj robes can be substituted in, but few people will farm SSC for those. | ||||||||||||
| #725 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Afflictor |
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yes zhardoom icnhes ahead of tempest +chronicle but im 99% sure 4piece then leggings of channeled elements are the best combo. when i ran my spreadsheet last night i found that illidari helm is about 9dmg equivilent above t6, channeled elements are around 20 and vashj robes with very high end gear actually pull ahead with around 22 dmg above t6 robes. pretty much a toss up between leggings and vashj robe. | ||||||||||||
| #726 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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| #727 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ninielin |
Mmm okay I ll go zhardoom. I guess my guts tell me 55 haste doesn't outperform the loss of 34 hit and 42 dmg ( since you have to get other + hit items on the rest of your armor, like nethervoid cloak instead of illidari).
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| #728 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
Well, the assumption is that you don't need the hit at this level of gear. Keep in mind nethervoid has a +11 dmg advantage (and some stats) over illidari.
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| #729 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
Can you post a gear list so that I can crunch the numbers? For the life of me I cannot make Zhar'doom come out ahead of ToC+OH
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| #730 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko |
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Using 1.17v Leulier with max debuffs casting just CoE and SB: chardev.org - World of Warcraft Character Planer .beta 1349shadow dmg 28,31% crit 16,24% hit 5,71% haste 1575dps, (1604 with CSD) Best with staff: chardev.org - World of Warcraft Character Planer .beta 1313 26,08 16 9,2 1563 (1593) | ||||||||||||
| #731 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | weet |
Comparing the two weapon choices in a tank and spank style situation, without considering +dmg buffs and how much mana regen you actually have in a raid situation is going to create a huge false impression.
Adding those things will mean that the staff pulls ahead. | ||||||||||||
| #732 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Yeah imo if you want good results with lieuler, you have to assume fight length and adjust lifetap frequency to make you oom at the end of the fight, and enter all mana available to you in the fight as either mp5 or plain mana. Then change your gear/whatever and do the same thing with same fight duration and see what gives more DPS.
Is there a new version that actually lets you set fight duration and adjust lifetap by it? And if not will it be added? How about buffs on the imp for affliction warlocks? | ||||||||||||
| #733 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
Honestly who cares about the "best case scenario." I don't know about other people but I'm looking for the best SB spamming gear set with Life Tap set to needed, CoS(CoE) casted and assuming all raid debuffs such as Misery, Shadow Weaving etc... and unbuffed(no fel armor either) DPS gear set. So far the best I can come up with is 1544.41 with the ToC+OH. No staff combination I've come up with comes close to that with the new spreadsheet.
Cohren - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger Thats the link to the numbers I used. | ||||||||||||
| #734 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
Why would you set up a situation without ANY buffs, including your own self cast buff? I can understand not accounting for a shaman for example, but what you're doing frankly doesn't make sense. You don't go into encounters with zero buffs, so why account for it?
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| #735 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko |
ToC+OH
chardev.org - World of Warcraft Character Planer .beta DPS: 1620 Raid DPS: 2104 Staff chardev.org - World of Warcraft Character Planer .beta 1606 2096 weet staff weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 1601 2101 Raid buffs: 130 fel armor 80 flask 101 WoA 42 oil 23 food 49 BoW 250 SP 62 Imp MS ~0.8% crit from int (AB & BoK) Regen values are taken from the Leuliers sheets examples. Talents etc used in sheet: CSD meta gem dem aegis 3 sac 1 isb 5 cata 5 bane 5 ruin 1 sf 5 sw 1,1 mise 1,05 cos 1,13 isb model 50% Last edited by Shuko : 12/25/07 at 2:17 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #736 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | weet |
Compare this staff setup to yours, should come out a bit higher again. (would swap to a pyrestone for horde for the 2 hit rating to get to cap, but no need as alliance)
weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger In reality the hyjal ring is undervalued in spreadsheets though so that should be in a proper gearset. | ||||||||||||
| #737 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Cohren |
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Also weet your gear set is unrealistic for the majority of the end game Warlock community as guilds like mine will not ever go back to SSC Last edited by Cohren : 12/25/07 at 11:01 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #738 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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If you want accurate gear comparisons you need to factor in as many variables as you can and this includes raid buffs. 2. Why should he tailor his gear set to accommodate warlocks who aren't going back to SSC? | ||||||||||||
| #739 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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If you're looking for "best gear set for 0/21/40 warlocks that excludes all buffs but includes all raid debuffs and excludes SSC gear", you're free to do so. I don't particularly see how the results are useful to anyone but you, though. As has been pointed out, hit/crit/haste/damage ratios will depend on your statistics, and a potential gear set that comes out on top with no buffs can easily be outdone by another when you calculate in Fel Armor, consumables, a Draenei Shaman, and the tons of other buffs/debuffs you can expect in a raid. But let's keep our responses mature, respectful and most of all, constructive. | ||||||||||||
| #740 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Antoine |
What model are you guys who are making ideal setups using for ISB uptime?
using chardev.org - World of Warcraft Character Planer .beta and the same raid buffs as above (shaman, not counting tide, tow, or bloodlust, spriest, flask, oil, food, wisdom, kings, ai), I got ![]() Last edited by Antoine : 12/25/07 at 1:18 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #741 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko |
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Updated the post above. I know the hyjal rep ring is underrated, but havent seen any real calculations of its effective dmg. EDIT: I suck at math, so someone correct. 15sec buff 60sec cd (45cd, 15buff) dmg x SF x SB eff x sac dmg per bolt = 95 x 1.2 x (3/3.5) x 1.15 15sec/2.5 = 6sb 6 x dmg per bolt = 674 674 / 60sec = 11dps Last edited by Shuko : 12/25/07 at 2:53 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #742 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko | |||||||||||||
| #743 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Setting lifetap to "needed" isn't very realistic, as you do not finish a fight with full mana. Setting it to "manual" and adjusting the frequency such that the "time until oom" will match the fight duration is going to give you much more realistic results.
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| #744 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | weet |
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And as others have said above, the buffs do change the relative value of some gear stats significantly. Even with a lifetap model of 'needed' with raid mp/5 buffs, which i still consider a significantly higher life tap freqency than what I would rate my usual 'needed lifetaps when in a situation where i can be casting shadowbolt' haste's value grows alot higher in comparison to damage with raid buffs and mana regen. As regards to vashj robes, this is theorycraft - if something is out of your reach itemwise you can adjust your own parameters upon item selection, but you cannot put that restriction on everyone globally.. in that case I was simply linking a gearset as the highest theoretically. In reality, personally some items such as the cape off of illidari council I cannot get in a reasonable time frame so I have my own wishlist gearset which excludes that, but it is simply worse than the best possible. In terms of ISB models changing from a static value to one of the modeled settings only really changes the value of crit vs damage from what I can see, yet the models are self-only so it is inflated quite a bit. Haste increases number of ISB procs over a timer period anyway, so given that the relative raid dps return of each crit becomes diminished with more destro locks I don't see much of an inaccuracy problem with using a static value around 50%. If you just focus on personal dps, the best gearsets are going to have a respectable amount of crit and haste due to the item budget. re: Hyjal exalted ring: this link has an estimation for a 10 second duration 35sec cooldown version, which is obviously not the same as the current ring but gives some idea. SimulationCraft/Trinkets/Warlock - Shadowpriest.com Wiki | ||||||||||||
| #745 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Problem is you want how much the *raid* dps increases, not how much your own dps increases. So ignoring other people's dps from your crits totally undervalues crit. Then again it might not be undervaluing it *that* much - can't really tell without a more realistic ISB model.
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| #746 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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For now, 50% uptime (on bosses) seems a relatively sane guess. | ||||||||||||
| #747 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
What the actual SB uptime isn't as important as knowing how much that uptime would actually change as you change your crit chance. As we're trying to evaluate gear here rather than just say how much dps you're going to be doing. While 50% may be a good approximation to calculate personal dps benefits, it completely neglects the change to that 50% that will happen if you change your crit rate.
As for all the guys doing unbuffed VS buffed comparisons... On one hand your results shouldn't differ *too* much, as changing your stats isn't that big of a deal regarding how good each stat is, however if you want to be as accurate as you can you should obviuosly take as much as possible into account. Since going unbuffed will give slight bias towards certain stats (depending what buffs you're neglecting) it doesn't make sense to calculate unbuffed DPS. Of course it will only make the difference when comparing items that are already pretty close - if 1 item is WAY superior to the other it won't matter if you do the comparison with or without buffs. Also remember that if you want accurate gear evaluation use the stats you have on your character at the moment (or will have very soon assuming you know you're getting that upgrade for sure) will give you much more realistic item evaluation. This may differ from what other people may get for those items, but what you need to know at the end is if this item is good for YOU, not someone who has all the best gear in the game except that one item. Again this is only going to make a difference for items that are already very very close in value so it probably doesn't matter anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #748 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Fireye |
I throw myself upon the mercy of the Elitist Jerks thread of awesomeness and win.
I've had a devil of a time deciding what to do with my Heroic Badges. I recently applied to a raiding group that's been killing Vashj and Kael for the past two weeks, and I have high hopes of getting in. I'm at the spellhit cap, but just barely. I'm having a killer time finding items to purchase with my heroic badges that will increase my damage done on a boss target. Can you guys help me decide just what would be a worthwhile purchase? The World of Warcraft Armory I have the Voidheart Gloves, the Brooch of Unquenchable Fury, Mindstorm Wristbands, Orb of the Soul Eater, and the Mantle of Ill Intent. Because a lot of my +hit comes from my gloves, I can't take the Studious Wraps. I have a small amount of +hit on my bracers, so the Runed Spellcuffs are out. I have 15 +hit on my pants, I can make that up by switching my neckpiece around, but overall I would lose 40 +dmg and gain 45 haste rating but I don't see that as a totally positive gain. The belt is a very small upgrade, but I trade +dmg for crit and some hit. Should I just sit on my badges until I get enough +hit gear to be able to get the pants, or should I go for something now? These things are burning a hole in my pocket! | ||||||||||||
| #749 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Getting 375 tailoring and FSW+spellstrike will up your DPS a lot and make it much easier for you to hit the cap - both because of the hit on spellstrike and becuase of the 5 dmg 4 hit gems you can place in the many sockets on those sets, not to mention the incredible amount of spell damage those sets provide. Isn't "pick tailoring if you're seroius" a part of the main post?... If it isn't it definitely should be mentioned somewhere there. Getting good dps without T5/6 and without tailoring is just not possible. Well possible but you will have a very hard time competing.
Note that if you need hit and don't need stamina, no socket bonus is ever really worth it over just socketing full 5 dmg 4 hit gems until you're capped. Generally with reasonable gear you shouldn't need to use 8 hit gems to cap your hit. | ||||||||||||
| #750 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Fireye |
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I've made a choice not to pick up tailoring. It's obvious that you can get by without that, albeit tougher. I enjoy being an alchemist, and gaining access to some ilvl 105 gear isn't worth the change. It's entirely possible to put out good DPS without T5/T6. The best? Obviously not, but competitive with the group that I'd be running with? Yes. Anywho, I'm not asking for general advice on my gear, it's obvious that there are improvements to be made. I just haven't had access to higher level raid content yet. Opinions on the new badge gear, and maybe some advice on how to work it into a boss gear set? | ||||||||||||
| #751 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | DaveA50 |
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| #752 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Trickykid |
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Opinions on the badge gear don't really matter since it's a simple stat versus stat situation. Plug the numbers into the spreadsheet and see, at your gear level, which pieces are upgrades. You'll be able to determine if dropping the hit is worth it as well as which pieces are worth foregoing for raid loot. | ||||||||||||
| #753 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | weet |
Well obviously your #1 problem at the moment is having to socket too much hit, so try to get at least one of belt of blasting/vashj robes/t5 legs as soon as possible (guessing the belt would be the easiest to get) and you should have more room to incorporate those badge/za items into your gear.
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| #754 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Fireye |
I didn't realize that the spreadsheet's interpretation of haste was valid. I'll use that, thanks.
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| #755 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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Hood of Hexing will give you all the hit you need, and then some extra on top of that. For now, though, you could regem that 6 dmg/4 int gem into a 4/5 topaz, allowing you to put another 4/5 topaz in your gloves. Mindstorm wristbands are excellent; I'd equip them right now over what you have even if you lose ~.5% hit. | ||||||||||||
| #756 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
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| #757 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Define "severely". As long as you're not losing more dmg than the hit equivalent on the spreadsheet, it's worth it to cap hit... This would mean you can lose a pretty damn high amount of spell dmg for hit and it'll still be worth it, however obviously there's an amount of spell dmg that will beat crit anyway. Instead of asking a million questions you could just look at the spreadsheet. tbh though if I was a guild officer I wouldn't consider someone who couldn't bother with the tailoring gear so far into TBC release.
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| #758 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PsyBomb |
Hit cap is actually quite easy to maintain, this is sans tailoring and having never set foot in anything above Magtheridon's Lair. Our T4 set pieces are absolutely loaded with it, and the new badge gear is very nice as well. At this point, I have the 202 Hit set (Has just over 1k shadow self-buffed and 15% crit) and angling to get some different pieces so that I can free up some slots for other stats. Look at my armory if you want any ideas for any easy-to-get items.
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| #759 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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| #760 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #761 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
More or less what I meant - some people would see their spell dmg drop under 1k when they cap their hit and think that's really bad even though they may have just lost maybe 1.2 dmg per 1 hit rating at worst - this is not severly gimping your spell dmg for hit this is actually increasing your dps.
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| #762 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | deneba |
0/40/21 vs. 0/41/20
I am trying to get a feeling for how these specs compare for a warlock who has achieved the 2/5 T5 bonus and carries the Solarian class trinket.
0/40/21 would keep a lower dps, more frail succubus up, but would offer up a bigger master demonologist bonus plus Ruin. 0/41/20 would keep a tougher, higher dps felguard up, but give up a bit of the MD damage bonus and Ruin disappears. So far I am leaning toward the former--as I continue to stack crit, my experience has been that Ruin is great compensation for the times where my pet accidentally dies... as a demonology warlock I lose out when that happens (obviously) but Ruin dulls the blow a bit. But I've read some amazing things about 200dps felguards tearing it up in SSC and TK (most fights, anyway) once they have the 2/5 T5 and trinket supporting them. What I can't find is much information on how a succubus holds up (actively dpsing) in the same fights. Is it pretty likely that a succubus would survive most boss fights that a felguard would survive? Or, is she just too frail and best left on passive? | ||||||||||||
| #763 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Amandil |
I was wondering could someone clear a few things up for me. In a 0/21/40 spec, how does Corruption and Immolate fit in? This may have been mentioned before and I missed it. I've heard differing opinions on whether or not to add Corruption and Immolate to a cast sequence. As far as I can see, Corruption would be doing 3500-4000dmg for a 2 sec cast, in a 25man. It seems pretty clear that sticking both immo and corr in would improve dps overall, but, at some point as crit increases, is it better to leave them out? If so, when?
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| #764 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PsyBomb |
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| #765 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Corruption is calculated as a dps LOSS for 0/21/40 afaik. Very small loss but why bother. Immolate gets similar results except you need to either lack imp scorch or have some haste for it to actually be a small dps loss rather than a small dps gain. Also there is currently no really accurate imp SB model that will show how much dps your raid is losing by you casting immolate instead of shadowbolt every once in a while.
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| #766 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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At low gear levels (starting Karazhan) Immolate and Corruption are better dps. As your stats increase there is a grey zone, and at the end of Hyjal/BT Shadow Bolt spam is just better. The grey zone is grey because of ISB and the value you put on the factors I mentioned before. | ||||||||||||
| #767 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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She's _very_ frail and needs constant looking after, she doesn't have the 50% aoe avoidance the Felguard has, and can't use Lash of Pain on the primary target. (because it eats ISB) However: - most of the problems I had are avoidable. I was new at the spec and at the fight. - I did not have the trinket (although I had 2p T5) - I didn't have the "dismiss" macro (linked in the compendium) - It theoritically has a really high payout, especially if your gear does not sport very high spellpower and if the Succubus can dps as well. - it is very fight dependent, and Bloodboil is probably not the best fight due to random poison damage being done to the Succubus I'm not saying it's a bad spec, it's a potentially very effective spec, and it comes with Fire damage tanking capacities. The downside is that it is harder to play, and your performance will depend on the encounter being pet friendly, moreso than the Felguard spec. | ||||||||||||
| #768 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
HOW TO: Incorporate ISB-Uptime Changes In A Raid Scenario Into A Spreadsheet
You need two extra data fields that you have to assume are relatively constant, and which you will have to obtain from your other warlocks and shadowpriests by either asking them about their cycle or parsing their data. You need the frequency of incoming shadow spells, and you need the ISB proc rate (or preferably ISB proc frequency, in procs/sec). From these, you add your own SB casting measure and proc frequency, and you get your raid-average ISB proc rate, from which you get raid ISB uptime from 1-(1-x)^4. This should give you a dynamic ISB uptime model that matches a raid expectation and reflects the effect of your crit rating on your shadow damage including ISB uptime. If you have an estimate of your raid's average pre-ISB shadow damage (or post-ISB damage and ISB uptime) you can us it to figure out the extra damage loss/gain from the change in ISB uptime, and therefore the explicit value of damage to crit counting raid damage rather than personal damage. | ||||||||||||
| #769 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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Take your normal shadow raiding crew and unlearn your destruction talents, nuking Dr. Boom for 5 minutes. Record individual and total DPS. Have all the warlocks person put 5 points into ISB and repeat the test, recording individual and total DPS. Note the % increase in individual and raid DPS. From there, we could probably extrapolate what the value of 1 point in crit is for both criteria. It won't be exact, but since everything is in percentage terms, the results should reasonably carry over to a raid buffed setting. The problem I primarily see is that ISB uptime has some sort of S curve behavior, and the value of 1 point of crit varies accordingly. Last edited by Krazen : 12/28/07 at 11:31 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #770 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
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While this looks very, very rough, it also seems incredibly more accurate than just assuming a fixed ISB time and/or just ignoring the raid dps benefit of ISB. | ||||||||||||
| #771 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Spline |
After playing around with Leulier's ISB simulator, I managed to learn that stacking crit for the purpose of increasing ISB uptime will not have noticeable results. Why? Several things are going on to account for this. I first noticed that the simulated uptime for a single 10min fight varies by as much as 15% with an average destro-demo-aff-SP crew. It's easy to find an average over multiple fights by increasing the fight length - at 10,000 seconds, the variance is less than 5%. With this fight length, I tried adding varying amounts of crit to each Warlock. As expected, giving crit to Destrolock had the strongest effect on ISB, which sadly wasn't very much. 10% crit added to Destro only pushed uptime up by 5% or so.
Going back to the 15% variance between 10min fights. I could severely mutilate my gear in order to gain that 10% crit. However, I wouldn't notice that 5% gained uptime on an individual attempt, since the random variance is so large. I suppose that on average, there will be more uptime over a large number of fights, but on a single fight the random-number-generator is going to have a stronger effect on uptime than anyone's individual crit rating. | ||||||||||||
| #772 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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I'll assume 1000 shadow dps per user before ISB: An additional 5% presence of the 20% damage boost provides a 10 dps boost. Now, at the hit cap, the leulier spreadsheet provides that 1 spellpower provides a .80-.87 dps boost depending on your crit. I'll assume .85, thus the 10 dps = 11.8 spellpower. Thus, 221 crit rating has the additional bonus of 11.8 spellpower (per shadow user other than yourself), or about .0534 per point in crit rating. So, splitting the value of crit into some function X + Y, where X is the value of 1 crit to yourself and Y is the value of 1 crit to everyone else: X is .58 with the base leulier values. You can insert your own value here. Y is .05*Z, where Z is the number of other shadow users in the raid. I don't know if I'm way off or my math is wrong, but that number doesn't seem unreasonable. Last edited by Krazen : 12/29/07 at 6:19 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #773 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | witchedwiz |
a lil question :P
currently my equip consist of two "sets" (2 x t4 pieces, 2 x spellstrike) and we are stuck on vashj (let's just say that some of us lack the motivation, so to speak)... is it worth it to throw a need at any t5 pieces (head/legs mostly.. since hands don't interest me the sligthest having both attumen hands and studious wraps wich i currently use)? and when exactly is it worth to spec into destru shadow? (%crit chance in tootip incl 3 backlash and min spelldmg would be appreciated).. i already have some other crit equi (s3 silk cloth bracers for one, boots of blasting... got no belts of blasting so far, since it didn't drop)... and is it REALLY worth to try to regem a bit my gear in order to fit in darkmoon faire crusade + icon, evnetually reverting back to attumen's hands//jewel of infinite possibilities//ashyen's gift//other to compensate for the loss of the bloodscryer gem? (i have all those items already, so it's simply a matter of swapping//regemming).. or should i just wait for the next batch of upgrade (vashj chest, some tk drop [we've abandoned tk till we down vashj :X]) and then re-trim my equip (consider that as far as caster items are concerned, i'm third dkp-wise on the current "raiding" roster, and second in a lock-only items perspective)? just a side note :P refrain from any comment on my sucky wand <_> i've had no luck with magtheridon/aran/black stalk since september (started again at the beginning of september and geared myself completely from green/blue drops with the help of my guildmates:X) and i'm getting so depressed that i'm starting to consider the badge wand :X | ||||||||||||
| #774 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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If you get a shot at Vashj's chest, it's great long term item. As for when it's worth respeccing: it depends. If you had bothered to read up, you'd have found plenty of discussions on the subject. | ||||||||||||
| #775 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Spline |
In my guild, Vashj's robes are considered an endgame item and are eligible for guild-provided epic gems.
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| #776 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Even though the variance in ISB uptime is bigger than the actual difference you'd get with increasing your crit, you still should be looking at what the *average* icreased by. If the ISB uptime increased by 5%, that's a 1% DPS increase to all your shadow users on average, no matter what the variance is. Wether that is or isn't worth getting those extra 10% crit or not depends how good 10% crit are for your personal dps compared to the stats you lose to gain that crit and how much dps the other shadow users are doing.
The only thing high variance means is that you cannot go to WWS etc and see the difference, just like if the fight is short enough you can't measure your crit chance via WWS (remember people reporting 20% crit on wws when they have 30%? or reporting 40%? doesn't mean their average crit rate isn't 30%...). Generally the best thing to do is to increase your average dps, as it will increase both the minimum reasonable dps you may roll and the maximum. | ||||||||||||
| #777 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Spline |
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| #778 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Evidicus |
As a raiding Destruction Warlock, I understand the importance of keeping ISB up as much as possible. However, I think gearing for crit at the expense of damage is a mistake, regardless of a person's good intentions to help their raid. Anytime you do this, you sacrifice guaranteed damage for a chance to crit, and even a 40% chance to crit is still a 60% chance *not* to. I am no mathematician, but I've seen first hand that even with a high crit rate you can string along several non-crits in a row on a regular basis. Each Shadow Bolt is a new spin of the wheel with the exact same crit chance as the last one (unless you have Darkmoon: Wrath I suppose), so even Warlocks with the same crit rate can see variances in how many crits they do in the same fight.
I have socketed for more crit in the past only to see a drop in my personal DPS and no cooresponding boost in raid DPS or ISB up time, so I feel your pain. The end result was a complete resocket back to as much pure damage as possible. Based on my personal raiding experience and observations, I gear for around 25% or so crit (after being hit capped for bosses, of course) and then everything else gets put into damage. This setup has been the most effective for me personally by far, and I still put up my fair share of ISB debuffs. If you can pick up more crit by getting a spot in a Boomkin or Elemental Shaman group, by all means do so, (free crit is always a great thing), but other than that I wouldn't go overboard stacking it. It just isn't worth it, in my opinion. | ||||||||||||
| #779 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Example: 5 Shadow users, each at 1000 dps (WITHOUT ISB) ISB uptime: 50% ISB bonus = 20% * 50% = 10% so real output = 5x1100 dps, total 5500dps Now increase one warlock's crit by 10%. His personal damage goes up by roughly 8%: when assuming 20% crit rate upped to 30% the result is roughly (70+2*30) / (80+2*20). ISB uptime goes to 55% according to the model. our critlock goes to 1080dps (without ISB) the others remain at 1000 dps (without ISB) ISB bonus = 20% * 55% = 11% critlock goes to 1198dps others go to 1110 dps (0.9% increase) real output = 5638dps Gain = 138dps raidwide or 12.6% of personal warlock dps. For comparison: statwise 10crit = 221 crit rating. 221 regular spellpower would result in approximately 11% gain. As a rule of thumb, I'd equate crit rating with spellpower as destro. | ||||||||||||
| #780 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Evidicus |
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For example, there are several encounters where threat is a huge concern. If I am watching my Omen meter like a hawk (which I normally do given this build's tendency for threat spikes), then I can determine those times I need to Soul Shatter or "throttle back" a bit. One way I continue to DPS while still lowering my threat gen is to cast an Immolate or Corruption (provided the debuff slots are available, of course). That 2 second Corruption cast will lower my damage per second, but it beats pulling aggro, blowing a Soul Shatter too early, or just standing around with my thumb up my butt doing zero damage and just waiting to cast another Shadow Bolt. Sometimes, regardless of how skilled your tanks are, something goes wrong. The boss could get a string of parries and hit like a truck, forcing your tank to worry more about mitigation abilities than threat gen abilities for a short while. The tank could dodge a lot of the incoming attacks and generate less rage than normal. These are also scenarios where pumping in 8k Shadow Bolt crits right away may not be the best idea. Another example could be a fight that involves a lot of movement, like Archimonde. There have been several times where I've put up Immolate and Corruption prior to running away from Doomfire, just because some DPS is better than zero DPS. Personally, while I greatly appreciate all the theorycrafting and spreadsheets I find here and on similar forums, the truth is that they are all tailored towards the best case scenario. The problem with taking it all too literally is that raiding doesn't happen in a bubble where random variables and unexpected situations never happen. The data and opinions in this thread are all extremely valuable guidelines, but that is all they are -- guidelines. What I would advise, Amandil, is take everything with a grain of salt and just be ready to think on your feet. After all, if anyone had all the answers out there, these threads wouldn't need to be as long as they are. | ||||||||||||
| #781 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | DaveA50 |
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| #782 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Spline |
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| #783 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Evidicus |
It's not spike threat though, so my thinking was that it's easier to manage and easier to watch myself "coast" to a safe area on the threat meter so I can ramp up another Shadow Bolt. I'll try the thumb theory though, just to see.
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| #784 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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I think the bigger question is whether or not to Spinel a given piece, given your guild's constraints on gems, and whether to pursue a socket bonus or not. For instance, if Spinels are limited, is it really fair to grab 2 for your Belt of Blasting? | ||||||||||||
| #785 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
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| #786 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Either way, one late Soulshatter usually is enough for me. Maybe if my gear improves I'll get into this scenario more often. I think it is quite obvious. Whatever spell is highest on the spreadsheet, common sense should prevail. If stuff doesn't live long enough, don't use dots. If threat is an immediate issue, don't use potential 8k Shadowbolts. If you need to cast something fast so you can move early, go for Immolate. Last edited by Arelenda : 12/29/07 at 7:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #787 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Rarely would you actually be able to tell that you have 1.5s to cast but 2.5s will take too long. Even bossmods timers don't seem to be accurate to the level of <1s.
When corruption is less DPS than shadowbolt, casting it is just silly. Even if you have to move you'd still be doing more dps spending that time on shadowbolt, and also get less threat per dmg done. If threat is an issue no reason to cast a spell that's less threat efficient. Also some would claim that with certain spells they can "ride the tank's threat" closer than with others, but in reality it really doesn't matter if you give the tank a 2k or 4k threat buffer, as in the long run it'll be a negligible amount of dmg relative to the total dmg you did in the fight. If threat is an issue you need to slow your dps, and while there are many ways to lower your dps and it really doesn't matter how you do it, just don't use abilities that actually generate more threat per point of damage done... | ||||||||||||
| #788 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Kobal |
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The main reason that Corruption and Immolate are not used in a "regular" DPS rotation for a 0/21/40 build is that their damage per cast time is lower than that of shadow bolt. However if their damage per cast time is lower, then it also makes no sense to cast them right before running. The better strategy would be to cast some shadow bolts instead. Yes, if you cast some SBs in those 5 seconds, you will do no damage while running, but the additional damage you did before being on the run more than compensates for this. | ||||||||||||
| #789 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Has anybody done any closed-form solution modeling for [Darkmoon Card: Wrath]? I know there have been X-thousand-cast simulations at various crit levels, but what I'm really interested in is an explicit formula for how it affects ISB. It increases uptime more than the same amount of crit because it redistributes the crits favorably. I think it's important to know, and I would just like some warning if I'm about to reinvent the wheel before I go off and model it on my own.
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| #790 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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| #791 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | GokieKS |
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And I really don't consider Belt of Blasting to be good enough of an item to warrant re-gemming for when you gain access to the BT/MH gems - there's a ton of +hit available from all the rest of the T6 level pieces, so all it really is is just a decent stat-less belt - both the belts from Anetheron and Supremus are upgrades, and neither boss is particularly hard. So barring some really bad luck with drops, both are very viable options. Last edited by GokieKS : 12/30/07 at 2:13 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #792 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko |
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Darkmoon Card: Wrath - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft | ||||||||||||
| #793 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Shuko |
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| #794 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Xelo |
As a affliction lock.. Is it even worth casting Immolate unless scorch debuffs are up etc.? Was just curious I've seen so many people say different opinions. I took it out recently on bosses, unless I'm moving around a bunch or on trash.
Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #795 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
I suggest you read the compendium. It has cookies. Also, a section called "Immolate vs Shadow Bolt".
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| #796 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Afflictor |
has anyone worked on what a best in slot set would be with a 13% hit cap? (elemental shaman)
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| #797 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | ♦ Eph |
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| #798 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Pruka |
Edit: Found the thread that answered my question.
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| #799 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | KuruQan |
OK,can somebody answer me,why the OP thinks CoA is better than CoD?CoA has 120% spell coefficient,while CoD has 200%.CoD is 70DPS,while CoA is 56.5DPS+you lose a gcd for reapplying CoA.I dislike all the locks,who use CoA in raids,so have I been wrong all this time?Is there something Im missing?
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| #800 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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For example, on any YYB item (both legs, t6 robe, vashj robe): A choice of 36 spellpower from Spinels, or 11+11+6+5 = 33 spellpower from the alternative. Each spinel is a 1 spellpower gain. Whereas on any YB item(belt of blasting, t6 shoulder): A choice of 24 spellpower from Spinels, or 11+6+4 = 21 spellpower from the alternative. Each spinel is a 1.5 spellpower gain. On a single socket Y item (t6 gloves), the obvious gain is 1 spellpower, and on a single socket blue (carved wand), the gain is 4 spellpower. I already socketed my slippers of the seacaller for the bonus, but in hindsight I kind of wish I didn't. But I think the priority should be those 2 socket YB's first, once metagem requirements are changed on the CSD. Last edited by Krazen : 01/02/08 at 5:44 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #801 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | GokieKS |
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You're right on the Supremus belt though, I was thinking for some reason that it had sockets. It doesn't and as such is pretty much worthless, as the fact that all the ones which have dropped for us has been DEed will attest. The rest of your argument is based on this assertion, but it's not one that I agree with. In my gear/spec at least, 1 crit rating is not even close to being equivalent to 1 damage - 0.64 based on unbuffed stats according to v1.18 of the Leulier/Piztai spreadsheet. Using 0.65 as a rounded easy number, a Pyrestone is only worth 9.25 spell damage, and in turns means a YYB+5 setup will only yield 29.5 spell damage equivalent, 6.5 short of using Crimson Spinels. On the other hand, a YB+4 setup yields 19.25 spell damage, 4.75 short of using Crimson Spinels. | ||||||||||||
| #802 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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1. I'm not sure why you are putting in unbuffed numbers, when the 200-300 spellpower added by buffs boosts the relative value of crit. 2. Increased ISB uptime boosts the relative value of crit to the raid, which leulier doesn't account for. There's been a bunch of discussion in this thread as to how much...I'll just say it is some positive value. 3. Even by your calculations, you have to divide the benefit by the number of spinels (after all, you could swap gemming 2 YYB items for 3 YB items). A YYB gets 2.17 dmg/spinel by your numbers, while a YB gets 2.375 dmg/spinel. Obviously the metagem requirement are a problem for now, but that will be changed. | ||||||||||||
| #803 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Hausnfranz |
hit or spell dmg
I just recently got my Frozen shadoweave and battlecast pieces together for my lock. I would like some advice about proper gearing in regards to hit VS spell damage at low level raiding and farming levels.
I am farming quite a bit for gold (epic mount) and season one gear in BG. I am not going to gem anything for pvp until I actually get the season one gear, so I would disregard that area. I will be doing Heroics in order to get into Karazhan, and expect to be doing the near raid bosses after that. I would like to know if spell dmg is greater then hit in this case because I will be doing little boss fighting, save for those I find in Heroics, Kharazan, and beyond. Is it reasonable to gem for all spell damage now, and then re-gem when I am doing more boss encounters (where would I draw the line)? Or should I get a bit of hit (certainly the cap is not needed, maybe just 5/5 supression?) and then gem the rest for spell damage? | ||||||||||||
| #804 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Johnneke |
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| #805 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Usually you go for CoS / CoE / CoR and only then can you consider personal dps curses. CoA spam still wins on offtanked trash, though. | ||||||||||||
| #806 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | KuruQan |
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p.s.Why SM not affecting CoD hasnt been fixed?This is a bug imo. | ||||||||||||
| #807 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | GokieKS |
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Regarding #2, I was under the impression that it does model, or at least attempt to, the effect of ISB. It's been a long time since I've last really looked into it though, but it does have a section devoted to settings for ISB calculations, so I'm taking it at face value that it does take it into account. As for #3, I'm not completely sure what you're suggesting. Because the main problem here is that I want to use as few Crimson Spinels as possible while minimizing the loss of DPS by using Pyrestones and Shadowsong Amethysts instead. And as there are a lot more YB+X socketed items than YYB+X socketed items (the only one of the latter I have is the Malefic Robe), I don't really see what my alternative is short of just not using Runed Crimson Spinels altogether - I just have the 3 in the Robe, while all other items use Potent Pyrestones and/or Glowing Shadowsong Amethysts. And yes, I'm very glad the CSD gem requirements is getting changed. I was very annoyed that I had to replace the 6 damage/6 stamina blue gem (reward from Nightbane quest) in my Engineering goggles (MB+5 sockets) with a Runed Living Ruby in order to keep the CSD active after I had a temporary brain lapse and put another blue gem in my T6 shoulders. Nothing like spending 50g to lose 6 stamina and 2 damage because of a stupid meta requirement. | ||||||||||||
| #808 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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The way I see it, the most common t6 geared player has 2 YYB items (Legs and Robe). All I'm saying is that first items to Spinel should be [Mantle of the Malefic] and [Slippers of the Seacaller] for the best value per gem. Going for the socket bonus on [Leggings of Channeled Elements] is no worse IMO than doing it on the above 2 items, because you 'save' 3 gems instead of 2. The problem is that blue sockets are useless, and YYB items compensate with a higher socket bonus than YB items do. | ||||||||||||
| #809 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | xruin |
Hey, guys. I had a question about gear/spec and after reading a lot in this thread I still wanted to ask a question. How would a 40 point destruction perform with imp corruption, imp life tap, nightfall, grim reach and empowered corruption IF I had 18% crit without talents/buffs, 1050 shadow damage with just fel armor (unbuffed otherwise), ~180+ spell hit and 4/5 Tier 5 (4-piece bonus)?
I started raiding as 41/0/20 and it proved to be a great spec for a while and I usually found myself at the top of the DPS charts or very close to it. Until recently. Destruction locks and hunters really surpass me now to the point where I'm realizing that my build is not keeping up anymore. I find myself 4th, 5th or even 6th behind our two destruction warlocks, two BM hunters and occasionally a fire mage. I've been collecting gear to try a destruction build and I knew 0/21/40 was the cookie cutter one. After putting together my set I wanted to see what other viable builds were out there. I saw some debate on the 21/0/40 spec and how it was deemed to not be a min/max build and something that would decrease overall DPS by 15% due to lack of DS. I guess my final question is the 4-piece T5 bonus with imp and emp corruption, along with nightfall, an alternative to 0/21/40 for the time being? Will probably pick up DS when T6 starts droppping and my 4-piece T5 bonus is broken. Any advice at all would be greatly, greatly appreciated - thanks!! | ||||||||||||
| #810 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
While I hadn't done the math myself, I'm pretty sure I've seen it mentioned already on these forums that 21/0/40 just doesn't do the same dps 0/21/40 does, although it's not a terrible spec at all there's simply no reason to use it as it does less dps for more debuff slots and actually requires more skill to play on top of it - and while i like a spec requiring skill I don't like a spec that after requiring skill still doesn't perform as well.
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| #811 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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It's just a different toolset. Over destruction you gain blood pact, self-sufficiency with siphon life, and a little bit of potential damage on the move with insta SL and Co. You lose health from DE, extra healing from DA, and the damage hit from not having DS. You contribute less to ISB uptime than a destro lock but more than a UA lock. You get less out of crit and haste than a destro lock but more than UA gets. Depending on what you're working on it can be a decent spec.. admittedly it pairs very well with the 4-piece T4 and the CSD meta in the helm... add on the fact that you can boost the damage of immolate quite a bit between 4-T4, 4/5 imp immo, and 5/5 emberstorm (at the cost of cataclysm and nether protection). But don't delude yourself, the damage will not outpace 0/21/40. I'll see what I can do about producing some numbers to compare the specs at your gear level. | ||||||||||||
| #812 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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I just can't believe that maintaining two instant cast dots requires any more skill than chain casting shadowbolts. | ||||||||||||
| #813 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Compendium also mentions that CoD isn't affected and that we don't know why. Compendium also mentions that it's only for affliction locks. Please read the compendium before stating that it is wrong, please. Last edited by Arelenda : 01/03/08 at 3:31 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #814 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | xruin |
Ok, well I'm just looking for advice on how to spec for destruction without doing 0/21/40 pretty much. I'd like to have more versatility, but still be as, or more, effective in terms of DPS as my UA build. Is it possible to eclipse UA, but just be short of the 0/21/40 build?
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| #815 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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| #816 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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For about 150 combat simulations per spec with my simulator, I'm getting the following numbers: 0/21/40 no immolate, no corruption: 1152 43/0/18 w/ immolate: 1125 21/0/40 w/ immolate: 1116 43/0/18 no immolate: 1104 21/0/40 no immolate: 1082 Which is to say.. at your gear level nothing beats shadow destro for raw damage. It's probably even more damage with adding the untalented corruption assuming you have the 4-piece T4. If you want utility, run a UA spec that includes immolate. 21/0/40 is close to the damage of UA but I can't imagine why you'd run it over UA.. you don't provide shadow's embrace for the raid and you don't provide malediction. Of course, you can figure out all of this on your own with the warlock spreadsheet linked in the OP. | ||||||||||||
| #817 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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| #818 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | xruin |
Are you talking about the spreadsheet at WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet by Leulier ? I didn't notice how it took Nightfall into account. Need to look at it more closely.
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| #819 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
If corruption is in your cast cycle and nightfall is selected, it reduces the average casting time of your shadowbolt. Last I saw it didn't account for nightfall with drain life--it's difficult because shadowbolt isn't your filler at that point.
It turns out nightfall isn't really that great of a sustained DPS talent because it doesn't proc very often and only saves you 1s of cast time (less, with haste). It's an awesome solo and PvP talent because it redistributes the short-term damage by 2.5s in addition to the long-term effect, it increases mobility, and it's burst damage that isn't affected by resilience, but as far as raiding goes it's more like the best filler at that point than a must-have talent. The 21/0/40 spec as a whole just doesn't gain much from the affliction tree. The first 21 points into it are more for soloing and other non-raid functions, and it's not until points 26-38 and 41 that there's enough damage bonuses going on to make it a workhorse raid tree. @idk: while I agree that managing two DoTs isn't particularly skill-intensive, I do think that the modicum of skill (or "skill" if you prefer) it requires is somewhat more than that of just mashing shadowbolts. | ||||||||||||
| #820 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | GokieKS |
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And maybe it's just us, but the pants off Kaz'rogal has been exceedingly rare. We've had something like 10 [Leggings of the Forgotten Conqueror] drop, compared to 2 [Leggings of Channeled Elements]. If you put Crimson Spinels in the shoulders/boots and Pyrestones/Shadowsong Amethyst in the Kaz pants, you end up with 10 crit rating, 71 damage (12*4+6*3+5), and 7 stamina at a cost of 4 Crimson Spinels, whereas if you put Crimson Spinels in the Kaz pants and Pyrestones/Shadowsong Amethysts in the shoulders/boots you get 10 crit rating, 68 damage (12*3+6*4+4*2), and 14 stamina at a cost of 3 Crimson Spinels. To me, it's pretty clear that 3 damage for 7 stamina is a trade off I'm willing to make for the sake of saving a Crimson Spinel. | ||||||||||||
| #821 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Gumibear |
Have you considered just doing a waiting list for Crimson Spinels instead of suboptimally gemming? You may be short on Crimson Spinels right now, but your guild will eventually have a surplus as people gear up. Before we killed Illidan, our Crimson Spinels would be going to use as soon as they dropped. Now that we've been farming awhile, Crimson Spinel demand isn't so high. We had a nearly equal demand for Pyrestones from our melee, and our healers love Shadowsong Amethysts, so it did not seem worthwhile to use epic gems I didn't really want and wanted to eventually replace.
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| #822 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | awakened |
I'm a 41/7/11 build lock who is currently raiding SSC/TK (we are at the final bosses in both). I'm concerned that I may not be getting the kind of DPS that I should or could be. My spec has some wasted talents in that I no longer get to cast CoA/CoD in a raid setting... I'm stuck on CoS/CoE duty since most the other locks don't have Malediction. Fully buffed etc, I can hover at around 1320 spell damage, but it seems like most of that is wasted since the bulk of my casts are SB and I just don't have the crit or spell hit rating to take advantage of it. Don't get me wrong, I can keep my own among the other locks, even surpass them at times, it's just that I don't seem to be able to compete all that much with the other DPS classes. I know that there are those classes that will consistently top the DPS charts, but I'd like to consistently hit number 5 instead of just peaking occasionally at number 5. Do any locks stay Afflic once they move on to BT/MH or do they all go demo/destr? Would dumping UA for Ruin improve my DPS or merely highlight the fact that I have no crit or spell hit? Any comments welcome.
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| #823 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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| #824 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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In my experience, at your progression and gear level, only the best equipped rogues can keep up with destrolocks. All specs (affliction, demo and destro) have their fans, but they all do solid dps and should be hovering near the top. Even the Malediction warlock should be able to hold their own. If you're outdpsing another warlock while providing talented CoS, then something is definitely wrong with guy. Make sure to have at the very least enough hit rating to be capped on trash (5% or 60ish), more is better. Check your dot selection (is Immolate worth it for you?) and uptime: are you refreshing too early? too late? | ||||||||||||
| #825 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | KuruQan |
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And I am just surprised,that Blizz havent fixed such an obvious bug,although we are talking about a company unable to fix a range bug for more than 2 years. And this last sentence was just thinking that if a lock has 1300+ shadowdmg,he will most likely be destro . | ||||||||||||
| #826 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | awakened |
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I would have to say that if anything, I may refresh late. I keep UA up as much as possible but will sometimes let Corruption or SL drop to get off another SB. I think I rarely use Immo in my rotation, as my gear is extremely shadow biased. I basically run CoS>Corr/SL/UA then SB spam between refreshes. I tend to play aggressively, so I cast until I run out of juice, then resupply all at once as opposed to during my rotation. It's only on the really long fights that I run into diminishing returns with this approach. I trinket cast when I can, but I only have one trinket that boosts damage over time (Icon of the Silver Crescent), the other is a pure +spell damage trinket. Because I cast so many SBs, I feel like I need to be doing something there to boost it's potential. I just don't know if Ruin will help it enough to justify dropping UA. I'm trying to figure out how to keep up the raid buffs while at least keeping in the DPS game. It's getting more difficult to compete with the non-affliction locks as they gear up and learn to play their specs better. My only plus is that I carry more spell damage than they do, but as I start to switch to T5 gear, that will begin to change. | ||||||||||||
| #827 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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1. Use UA > Corr at all times. Since they are both 18 second dots, they will sync up every time. Maintain SL independently of this. 2. Your 'lifetapping all at once' approach leads me to believe you're lifetapping when DoTs have expired. You don't want to do this; lifetap only after dots are up in place of shadowbolts. 3. Are you dotting multiple targets? 4. Group buffs/player consumables have a significant impact on dps. | ||||||||||||
| #828 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Stran |
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1. UA has 3 seconds left and your SB just finished. Cast another SB and you just lost 2 seconds of UA and Corruption uptime. If you Life Tap or Dark Pact, you just used 1.5 seconds to catch up on mana and can begin recasting UA and follow it with a Corruption, keeping 100% dot uptime. This will add up over the course of the fight. 2. Fight requires movement. If you just used 6 seconds to tap to full (doing no damage at this time) and now have to move ... that movement time is largely wasted unless some instant dots need refreshing. Instead, tap on the move and save non movement time for SBs and UA casting. 3. While not an impact on DPS, tapping all at once can lead to an accidental death. Getting used to tapping during a rotation can ensure your healers do not blow their mana on emergency heals, and can ensure your survival. You can also likely stay toped up with SL ticking. If you have a Shadow Priest in group, not taping regularly leads to his passive healing being largely wasted (but does provide him with slightly less threat at least) Other notes: 1. It takes a large number of +shadow to make immolate worthless. It does need 16% hit as opposed to other dots but it cuts into SB time anyways which also requires 16% hit. 2. How do you calculate DPS/Damage Done? This can have a large impact. Some guilds include trash in their numbers. While clearing trash quickly is very beneficial, it largely favors burst builds (mages, rogues, shamans, warriors). So maximizing DPS on trash is very beneficial but evaluating your build on it is not, as few guilds struggle with trash while high DPS on bosses can mean a difference between success and fail. 3. Your dots are king. If there are multiple targets available, prioritize dots on all targets over shadowbolts. You will not get the benefit of main kill target debuffs (ISB, SW, Misery) but you will still see a great DPS increase. 4. You did not link your profile, keep in mind even affliction locks need 16% hit to be competitive. 45% of your damage should be from SB (unless multi target encounter). Hope that helps. I am regularly top of my guilds charts. I acheived this in both 6/44/11 and 0/21/40 builds. Rogues do trounce me on some encounters, while I trounce them on others. Recently a mage has been gunning for that spot but I remain very competitive. While affliction locks do tend to sacrifice a lot for the utility they provide, I was beaten by one last night on Terron (I blame it on a very biased blossom pushing my spells back). | ||||||||||||
| #829 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
I think that any practical affliction raiding build will not make use of amp curse, even if the points in the tree allow one to get it. The raid has use for at most 2 affliction locks, one for each kind of malediction-enhanced curse. Additional affliction locks consume more debuff slots and their improved damage curses rarely outweigh the raw damage of a destro or felguard lock... and any respectable warlock build (for pure raid dps) that's not deep affliction will not have amp curse.
So who actually ends up using the talent? | ||||||||||||
| #830 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | awakened |
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2. I typically use Dark Pact over Life Tap unless my Imp is on empty. I always refresh my DoTs before doing so unless doing so would generate too much aggro. The RL will call no more DoTs on certain fights to ensure that the tank can reestablish aggro first. So there is always instances where DoTs will drop. Keep in mind that I usually rejuice while I am on the move or when we are switching targets. It's only on the extremely long fights that I have to interrupt my spell rotation to do so. 3. Dotting multiple targets isn't an option for the most part because we move from target to target generally. Nothing pisses off the RL more than seeing a DoT show up on a target that isn't the current target. Some fights we are tasked with dual duty, but generally, we're on a single target at all times. | ||||||||||||
| #831 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Pidge |
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1. There are times when I want to only cast Corruption, such as during trash or kiting Stalkers on Vashj. 2. I feel there is a delay in /castsequence macros when attempting to chain after spells with a casting time. I think it is caused by the sequence not advancing to the next spell in the cycle until the client finishes the current spellcast. | ||||||||||||
| #832 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Stran |
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Caveat is that you never let UA drop before starting to recast it. It needs to start being reapplied 1.5 seconds prior to its last tick. | ||||||||||||
| #833 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
I'm going to speak a little blasphemy here. I'm thinking about a shadowfury build. Since this is a thread about PVE warlock raiding, I figured this would still be relevant.
Some context: I'm on a backwater server where 25-man raiding doesn't happen. The small guild that I'm in focuses on the 10-man ZA timed event in spite of our T4/KZ gear. I've been thinking of ways to optimize my spec for the run. My raid always has a shadowpriest and almost never has a mage. I'm frequently the only warlock, so CoS is about all the raid gets in terms of curses. Our tanks and healers are geared and skilled enough to not need the debuff from shadow's embrace, and we only run with 2 healers. Speeding up the rate at which we kill bosses and trash is the way for us to bridge the gap between killing 3 bosses and killing 4 bosses. My damage is already highly optimized, I'm generally doing 1200-1400 for the 4 timed event bosses with a standard 0/21/40 build. I've elected not to take a UA build because the DPS is awful for trash, which is half the speed run. I love the felguard build but the boss encounters in ZA are largely pet unfriendly (and 2-piece T5 isn't available to me). I think that shadowfury is a powerful talent for select encounters in ZA.. so I wondered how viable you could make a raiding spec that included it. What I came to realize is that shadowfury has a .5s cast time that doesn't trigger the global cooldown. The raw damage of my shadowfury (which includes spell power and averaged crit but does not include ISB, CoS, misery, SW, etc.) is 1148. My shadowbolt is 1981. The DPCT of shadowfury before debuffs is 2296 compared to shadowbolt's 792. I know it's not going to be a huge damage increase because shadowfury inhibits ISB uptime by consuming a charge (I presume but this will require verification), it's on a 20 second cooldown, and it's expensive (710 mana before cataclysm). So I added shadowfury to my damage simulator giving it a .5s cast + lag and no GCD, and started playing with specs. I also generated numbers for other standard specs to get an idea of relative value. shadowfury and shadowbolts: 1371.46 ua with immolate: 1389.41 7/13/41 with corr: 1395.32 ua without immolate: 1399.07 20/0/41 (no grim reach): 1405.27 7/13/41 with corr and immo + destro fire talents: 1421.48 20/0/41 with corr and immo + destro fire talents: 1426.44 0/21/40 shadowbolt spam: 1538.95 0/40/21 DT/Ruin: 1549.53 My favorite variant so far is 7/13/41 with the destro fire talents to improve immolate. With just the shadowpriest and I in the raid, ISB uptime for him drops by 7% as compared to a pure shadowbolt spam 0/21/40 build.. a difference of 1.4% total damage for him. FYI, my damage numbers above already incorporate the drop in ISB uptime. So it's interesting.. and it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The other thing that's amusing about this spec is that it's the only one that I know of that truly has a disposable pet. With 13 points in demonology (for aegis) it's easy to get the improved imp for the extra little boost in stamina for the party. On fights that are not stam intensive (with little raid damage) it's possible to just have the imp slinging firebolts. With a shadowpriest in the group he should be able to spam for quite awhile. Finally, I think there's just enough movement in the ZA boss fights to benefit from the instant-cast corruption and .5s shadowfury (that should be easy to pull off "on the move"). Thoughts? Has anyone else put much thought into a spec that includes shadowfury? Given that you need to select the AOE target once the spell has been triggered, is it actually practical to consider the spell a .5s + lag cast? | ||||||||||||
| #834 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Stran |
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Not sure what to offer you. Your own numbers show that it's not the optimal DPS spec. It isn't as much DPS as 21/40 nor is it as mana efficient. If you are not after the optimal spec (be it DPS or utility) anything you get will likely be speculations. You are obviously willing to take the DPS hit, so with that in mind, is shadowfury usable? Sure, any spec is. Will it increase your run time? Likely not. It will help on some bosses, but you will be slower on others. Shadowfury also stuns which I believe generates additional threat. And as far as cast time, 0.5 is close. With enough practice, you can get off SF in a split second. | ||||||||||||
| #835 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
It appears Syphon of the Nathrezim comsumes ISB charges (if the WoW forums are to be believed). I will probably try to con our MT into some tests with me later today just to satisfy my curiosity. What i'm trying to figure out, is how much of an impact this has on raid DPS. It doesn't help that i can't seem to find any sort of definitive information on its chance to proc. If anyone has, or can point me towards anything that indicates its proc chance that would be awesome.
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| #836 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Krazen |
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Throw a doom on FLK on the pull. While your raid is killing the shaman (or hunter), maintain full dots on that one and maintain at least agony, UA, Corr on the other. Throw a 2nd doom on FLK as you hike over to the priest. There are some exceptions to this, I guess (Striders on Vashj have to be killed before the next pops), but you have to evaluate those situations on your own. If your RL doesn't let you maximize your potential, that's his problem, not yours. | ||||||||||||
| #837 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
I guess I'm probing for experience with the spec and trying to promote general discussion about a skill that's largely ignored (and ignored for good reason the vast majority of the time). I intend to spec it and try it but I want to make sure my logic is sound before i make that decision (and risk a timed event opportunity).
7/13/41 is less mana efficient than 0/21/40 but gains imp lifetap. The number of lifetaps in a 10 minute fight between the two specs are identical assuming 16% hit and shadow priest regen (for me it's 36 taps unless there are excessive resists). Part of the problem with my modeler (and with the spreadsheet) is that it's intended to simulate damage for extended fights (600s) that involve no movement and a single target. Unfortunately this is a far cry from what it's like to actually run ZA. The extremely difficult question to answer is: how much movement / interruption / parallel damage does it take before a more mobile spec outperforms an entirely stand-and-cast spec across an entire instance of content? That's probably something that can only be determined empirically which is more or less why I'm trying to initiate this discussion. | ||||||||||||
| #838 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | • frmorrison |
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It doesn't do that, don't believe WoW forum goers . Regarding 7/13/41 build, sure Shadowfury is fun, but your mana per damage (due to no 15% shadow buff) is a lot lower, so you have to life tap more to do the same damage. However, if you must have an imp out AND have shadowfury, it is the best build. | ||||||||||||
| #839 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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The imp comes with shadowfury regardless of how you spend your 20 points outside of the initial 41 in destruction. I'm not sure what other pet you would use and sacrifice isn't an option. | ||||||||||||
| #840 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Silverstorm |
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Even our SP/Boomkins will dot a secondary target. It's typical for me to tab to the second target and see 10-15 dots ticking away while the primary target gets the burn. | ||||||||||||
| #841 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
Minor nitpick: Shadowfury doesn't not have a global cooldown, it just has a 0.5s global cooldown so it doesn't matter. This tends to be true of all sub-1.5s cast spells (which is to say, warstomp shadowfury hammer of wrath).
There are several times in ZA where I wish I had a stun. Most of them involved dragonhawk trash or dragonhawk boss. It is in fact quite an awesome talent, it's just that 15% damage is a crapton to give up and the situations where you can really make use of it are few and far in between in any sort of raiding situation. Which makes me sad, because I think it's a really cute spell, and I like anything that breaks up the monotony of the otherwise-simplistic nuke-spam destro spec. If you can find a way to make it work well or a situation where it really shines I would love to hear about it. | ||||||||||||
| #842 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Shadowfury shines in any aoe fight. However those are not enough to warrant the dps loss - even on those fights where it's good it's not worth the 15% dmg loss (with the possible exception of the dragonhawk boss since it's not really a dps fight but not getting killed by the hawks is sweet).
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| #843 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Idk |
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Yes, you lose 15% shadow damage for your shadow bolts. With 20/0/41 you gain instant corruption, imp lifetap, amp curse, emp corr, and nightfall.. on top of shadowfury which, completely ignoring the aoe aspect of it, is still a considerably higher dpct spell than shadowbolt. I will not deny that 0/21/40 is better than any build that involves 41 in destruction for a stand and cast, but I think it's a misconception that a shadowfury build is 15% worse than a destro build that involves demonic sacrifice. My work with the spreadsheet and my damage simulator puts the difference at ~8% for pure stand and cast fights. Under almost no circumstance would I take an 8% damage hit. However, I do believe that the damage potential of a shadowfury build specifically in a ZA timed event raid may be better than 0/21/40.. but that's because 1. not all boss fights are stationary casting, and 2. shadowbolt spamming is very inefficient for multi-mob fights. I can think of tons of places where a ranged stun can improve things.. 1. Bear trash: contributing to the stunlocking of the totem guys that put up the immunity totem 2. Bear trash: keeping my fear target in place to reapply fear for the pull immediately before bear (we have no mages to sheep them) 3. Eagle fight: is it possible to hit any birds while hitting him with the shadowfury? 4. Eagle fight: having a damage spell to cast on the run after bubbling up for the storm (since tapping here is not a good idea) 5. Lynx trash: contributing to stunlocking the tamers to minimize mind control 6. Lynx fight: stunning the lynx trash at the boss when they pop up to make it stupid simple for the OT to pick them up 7. Firehawk trash: being able to solo the scouts from range (shadowbolt + shadowfury + shadowbolt/sp/immo/shadowburn) 8. Firehawk trash: helping stunlock flamecasters, particularly if you have the bad luck to get 3+ flame casters on the pull before firehawk 9. Firehawk boss: fairly obvious 10. Generically, the instance is full of aoe pulls and we use a prot pally to tank. Seed does great damage but the dpct of shadowfury is even better because of its extremely short cast time. What I need to find out is how useful this utility is. I also need to find out how shadowfury is affected by ISB. I assume it consumes a charge but there's always the chance that it doesn't. | ||||||||||||
| #844 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
For timed ZA, I highly doubt this utility will help more than +8% dmg.
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| #845 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
For most of the scenarios you listed, shadowfury provides at best marginal utility, and would not make any serious dent in how they are handled. I'm not sure that utility justifies the DPS loss you show, but at the end of the day its your choice.
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| #846 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Arelenda |
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Of course it uses ISB charges, unless it's bugged. Feel free to try it and see if it doesn't, easily tested. As for the original question: I personally like Shadowfury a lot. It's nifty and fast and has a very low cooldown, and it allows you to do a lot of stuff warlocks typically can't, like ranged stuns/interrupts. The dps loss is probably around 10% indeed. You do gain Bloodpact and imp lifetap, both definite bonuses in ZA. Whether it's worth it: up to you, really. The tradeoff is raw firepower vs control, so the answer will no doubt be subjective. | ||||||||||||
| #847 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | galzohar |
Thottbot World of Warcraft: Shadowfury
While thottbot isn't exactly the "omg-reliable" information, it had been correct regarding global cooldowns for other spells (for example HoW having 0.5s, and shield block having none). | ||||||||||||
| #848 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Suggestive |
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| #849 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 Edited onPatch 2.3.0 | Ammanas |
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Last edited by Ammanas : 01/07/08 at 3:21 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #850 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | PSGarak |
There are very particular fights where one trash mob in a pack absolutely needs to die right the hell now. Most trash packs do not have such a mob, and is in fact boring enough that a DPSer can ignore its special abilities. In situations like this, the only thing that matters is how fast the pack as a whole dies, and multiple targets lets us take advantage of DoTs' higher DPCT. Educate your raid leader.
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| #851 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.0 | Silverstorm |
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We're at 4/5 3/9, and have cleared that for 3 weeks now (plus a couple more weeks in Hyjal on just the earlier bosses while we finished attunements). | ||||||||||||
| #852 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | awakened |
Hmm... 40 debuff limit. How would you know you're hitting it?
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| #853 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Fafhrd |
Demon addon:
Demon - Debuff Monitor (pDebuffList2) To continue the discussion about best warlock weapon; the theoretical dps numbers for [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] versus [Tempest of Chaos]/[Chronicle of Dark Secrets] are pretty close. People who have looted both sets, which ones are you using? Choosing crit over haste would make the dps you put out in a single bossfight pretty much luck-based afaik. | ||||||||||||
| #854 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | wind | |||||||||||||
| #855 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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| #856 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
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But to point, they are basically the same in terms of DPS, there are lots of possible gear combinations mentioned several pages back I believe. They difference was negligible. In practice, the +hit on Tempest may go to waste, but on the other hand, haste bonus can be difficult to make use of. | ||||||||||||
| #857 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
It hit capped otherwise with zero hit gems, Zhar'doom is better. However, that is quite a bit of hit to have in other slots.
Haste is always useful, since every spec casts Shadow Bolt. I agree with rochan, a caster with both weapons (unless healers had them too), would be hated by their guild, I doubt anyone is that lucky. | ||||||||||||
| #858 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Melladi |
Hey EJ, I dont have the posts or rep for posting here in its own thread, so I posted on my guild forums!
Why YOU need an affliction lock in your raid! A fairly accurate theorycrafting exploration of the raid DPS impact of one utility affliction lock. | ||||||||||||
| #859 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Fafhrd |
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Affliction locks are great when you are learning encounters, for both Imp and SE, but I don't think they are a big improvement for farm raids unless you are running with 4+ warlocks. | ||||||||||||
| #860 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Melladi |
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| #861 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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Shadow Embrace and an imp are great. I think it goes without saying a raid with one affliction warlock is best off. Even on farm kills stuff can go bad occasionally. That said: - Malediction is not 3% more shadow damage, it's 113% instead of 110%. - ISB uptime is not negligible. Affliction locks have 3% less crit, focus their gear less around crit, and cast less SBs. Hard to model though, although nice attempts have been made by Leulier. - In addition, I don't like the "this % of raid damage is physical so we save on healing" argument. If you're going to argue that SE is beneficial, I'd go for "it mitigates spike damage, which is what kills tanks". Any string of hits that kills a tank is bound to have a very large physical component, unless it is a gimmick designed to one shot people. Whether an affliction warlock ups dps is hard to determine. I doubt he does, but I don't consider that very relevant. I'd go for the general statement: "good enough dps with perks". Ask a tank what gear he'd need to get 1000 extra hit points and -5% physical damage. Last edited by Arelenda : 01/08/08 at 9:30 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #862 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
affliction spec variants
The affliction tree has very little leeway requiring 42-44 points to maximize its dps (and threat reduction) ignoring CoA and all utility (counting malediction as "dps" and not "utility" of course - by utility I mean CoEx, drain life and the likes), with the 2 "optional" points being the range increase. The destruction tree pretty much requires 17 points as spending any less will hurt your and your raid's dps more than it'll help.
This pretty much leaves you with 1-3 points to play with. Would the improved imp for better tank buffs be worth the range loss? I'm a big fan of range, then again I'm a big fan of stacking the tank with buffs whenever possible so he doesn't die. And going with range last point could go into either CoEx or at least 1/3 improved imp, leaning towards imp as CoEs is hardly useful past vashj as far as I know, and even on vashj it has useful alternatives. Also there's the option of getting 1-2 points in intensity for pushback prevention (1 without losing range, 2 require losing at least 1 point from the range talent). How would you go with the very few points you do have the option to choose what to do with in the affliction tree? | ||||||||||||
| #863 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Melladi |
This Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is what I'm running right now in BT.
Yeah, the math is wrong as someone pointed out, its not a 3% increase. However, its still CLOSE to a 3% increase, which means the generalities of the post are still intact. | ||||||||||||
| #864 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | PSGarak |
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator
Those are the 30 actual raid-DPS talents in the tree, ignoring shadow embrace and CoA and picking up range, threat, and malediction, if you're hit-capped. The only things I would say are basically required for a raid build are improved lifetap and shadow embrace, but that's still only 37. There's more room in there for personalization and utility than you're giving it credit, so long as it's coming from within the affliction tree. 3 of 110 is 2.7~%, which is 1/11 less than 3%. Possibly less, if improved shadowbolt and shadoweaving stack additively. Still, it's reasonably close that any qualitative conclusions are well-supported. | ||||||||||||
| #865 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Scud121 |
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I would think that the drop in boss damage would be compensated by the faster kills on trash along with the added utility. I guess the only way to find out is to test it and let us know. There is also the feelgood factor to consider, whilst wringing out every last 0.01 DPS with concrete sequences that have been meticulously calculated can put you at No1 on the meters, its not always suitable to your playstyle/enjoyment. | ||||||||||||
| #866 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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Please, stop bringing up the "but it does more/equal damage" argument. It doesn't. I'm having deja vu: someone comes up with a talent build, and then decides that he has to convince everyone including himself it is the best for dps. I'm pretty tired of these jihads. Most of us have been through this with affliction vs destro and then the 30/21/10 spec. First we prove that it is inferior dps, then we get the argument about it being more fun. It's a nice spec. I had it for a while, and it IS fun to play. The difference between that and 0/21/40 isn't all that big in terms of damage output. Distinctively less than 15%, probably near 7-10%. And it can shine in raids when it does work: ZA and Hyjal come to mind. | ||||||||||||
| #867 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Bolche |
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SE is the only reason you want an affliction lock in a raid. If you only want an imp, a 21/0/40 can do it as well, while maintaining a higher dps and a higher ISB uptime than an affliction lock I see malediction more like a compensation for the lower dps of affliction lock than a real added utility, and Melladi's numbers confirm this. | ||||||||||||
| #868 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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| #869 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Silverstorm |
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So we have 43 required points for a raid build in Affliction, supported by a required 17 in Destro (assuming you want max range). That leaves one real point of personalization, whether it's Shadowburn, Imp HS (though the other locks have points to spare for that), or Imp Imp (since demo/destro have other pet priorities). To provide max raid utility, Imp Imp is the obvious choice, I think. So much for choices! | ||||||||||||
| #870 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Tragik |
Voidheart vs. Corrupter
Hello,
First time poster. I'm finding Lock theorycrafting difficult to say the least. My guild is currently working on Kael'thas and I am working on which upgrades to get to help them. Currently, my damage output is OK (always in the top 5 on the meters) but I'm kind of in a rut gear-wise as to what to pursue. So, to stay as short and sweet as possible: My armory link is here: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...20Tor&n=Tragik (Please, no cracks on the cloak or the gloves) I have my T4 and T5 gloves in the bank, but the biggest DPS improvement as of late that I have seen was switching to cap hit, as you can see I am. I know my crit is somewhat low for the SM/Ruin build I have, but with that being said, generally our WWS show my crit % on Sbolt to be in the 21% range in raids. I have read a ton of information stating that the corrupter set is better, and the stats would indicate that, but I see a potential pratfall: the two-piece bonuses. I'm considering pursuing the Cowl of the Grand Engineer and the Vestments of the Sea Witch from Vashj over bidding on another piece of Tier 5, because, frankly, I don't want to go Demo (we have an extremely proficient Demo lock as it is right now). What I would like to see is a breakdown of how a T5 4-piece breaks down against the gear I have (just switching BACK to my T4 gloves for the two-piece bonus) with the T4 pants, with the Cowl of the Grand Engineer and the chest i have or the Vestments from Vashj (the cowl should make up for the loss of hit on the Handwraps of Flowing Thought, as the Voidheart Crown has no hit). I can't figure it out, people say the proc rate on Shadow flame is less than 5%, however, then with my limited amount of spell dmg, I can't figure out how I am able to sustain my standing on the meters, despite the fact that other locks in our guild don't PVP in down time as much as I do (hence the Imp HoT), and have more points in contagion with more spell dmg and crit than I, if the proc rate is indeed that low. I can see how the big increase in Stam, hit, and crit would benefit a Demo lock, but I still can't figure out if I really wasted DKP on those T5 gloves that I have in the bank at this point. I mean in all honesty, it would be a great PVP set, except for the fact that there's 0 resilience (which trumps all at this point, IMO). My apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere and for my overall noobness with not being able to link items in HTML (I suck at websites). I find this disturbing on many levels because I feel Blizz is pigeonholing me to a spec for maximum output...and that spec ain't mine...... | ||||||||||||
| #871 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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BTW, Tier 5 gloves would be a buff on non-bosses. Every class a its best damage spec, and it isn't your spec. | ||||||||||||
| #872 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Tragik |
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In addition, not having Ruin made the inner demons on Leo a total PITA.... I run the EJ spreadsheet, btw. I also understand that the T5 pieces would be a buff on non-bosses, but at the same time, I have no problem grinding as it is. I like having the utility of being at max range and not moving for both Sbolt and my Dot refreshments. | ||||||||||||
| #873 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Akj |
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" So a little less than half of all damage was physical, probably typical of a majority of BT fights. So how much less damage would the tanks have taken with 5/5 shadow embrace up? 1,267,560 * 0.05 = 63,378 which is 2.4% of the total raid damage taken. In terms of healing, thats 15 Holy Light's or 40 Flash of Light's or (insert breakdown for other healers here), which could go to a needy raid member, to keep them healing or DPSing." I think the above conclusion is wrong. The damage reduction via SE will not result in 100% mana or time spent savings for healers since there will always be a significant amount of overhealing. | ||||||||||||
| #874 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Idk |
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Sadly I haven't run ZA since I postulated about shadowfury in the first place.. ideally I'll be doing it this evening. ![]()
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| #875 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Why would an affliction warlock spec into lifedrain/fel concentration over nightfall? Granted nightfall is a small dps increase, but it's a dps increase while lifedrain and fel concentration aren't unless you don't run with healers in your raid...
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| #876 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
For the most part, stunning mobs is bad for tanking since it reduces rage-generation. Also, while there are many multi-mob pulls in ZA, there should be CC on them too, making SF even more situational.
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| #877 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Bogeywoman |
I've been every spec, and I keep coming back to 7/44/11.With my PVE gear (3T5, hitcap, ~1100 damage), I do more aggregate damage with that spec than with 0/21/40 in actual SSC/TK clears.
I think it's because of the movement requirement. Both 7/44/11 and 0/21/40 allow you to keep your head up and scanning far more than 4x/xx/xx does due to the lowered minmax dot refresh requirements, which is a bonus -- but 7/44/11 features a buffable dot that keeps ticking, added survivability due to the shared damage pool, an emergency 2 second stun on adds, amplified +damage totals (fully buffed I'm over 1600), which play really well against the multiplicative debuffs, and most importantly of all, reduced average cast time. Since you're still throwing in corruption and immolate, you're spending about an average of 2.2 seconds casting as opposed to 2.5. I can't explain it with math, but this extra 15% of the time that I can be moving seems to increase the amount of time that I'm using global cooldowns aggressively. I guess if you imagine a case where an arbitrary movement-requiring interrupt comes in, and you're 0/21/40 and your curse is already up, there's nothing for you to do but cancel and move, where it's more likely that the 7/44/11 is in global cooldown off a dot cast and can move immediately. | ||||||||||||
| #878 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Idk |
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Given that 0/21/40 is thoroughly discussed and understood, I really don't see anything wrong with discussing alternate specs and strategies for specific encounters. After all, we're theorycrafting to improve performance... we're not theorycrafting to further support our simulated models. If I can conclusively produce better performance in ZA with shadowfury, is there any reason why I shouldn't do that? If I run some numbers, postulate some ideas, present them here for critique, try it out in practice, and find that it doesn't work out.. are we all stupider because of it? I don't believe so.. I believe that everyone interested and following the discussion will understand our class just a little bit better. We'd know conclusively that for that specific encounter (and encounters like it) spec X just isn't superior. What happens if I'm right, though? I'll have found, with the help of this board, a better way to do a specific encounter.. something that's important to me. I wouldn't have brought up shadowfury if I saw the numbers presented somewhere on this site.. however, I haven't seen it. Why is it so bad to discuss something like this? 30/21/10 is different because it's been brought up many times and there's clear evidence if you look through old posts that it's not a superior spec. Please, point me to the shadowfury in ZA discussion so I can feel good about going back and deleting my previous posts. In fact, point me to any real numbers involving shadowfury on this site for any encounter. I've searched extensively and found nothing. As maintainer of the warlock thread about PVE raiding, I find it shameful that you're so resistant to any theory that assume is incorrect or because it doesn't involve a scenario that you're interested in. Not everyone's running BT. Not everyone's in T6. ![]()
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| #879 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Idk |
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1. I'd like to think that a 2s stun isn't significant enough to matter. It's the opening cheap shot that really hurts tank threat/rage generation, in my opinion. However, it's something I'll look out for. I've still never actually used shadowfury. 2. I agree that things should be CCed. However, our raid has very limited humanoid CC (no rogues, no mages).. we're limited to our shadowpriest with mind control, where AOE doesn't hurt. In addition, we work with a prot pally MT so it's faster for us to tank all the trash at once and try to do as much parallel DPS as is practical. | ||||||||||||
| #880 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
If you're killing the mobs simultaneously, you're probably better off with affliction and maintaining a high DPCT multi-dotting. Gaining control from a 2s stun on CD isn't an effective long-term strat. If your guild is going to push for the timed event, you shouldn't be relying on SF at all -- your tanks and CC should have the place burned into their brains and let DPS max out.
It might be useful for learning ZA for the first time, but if you're aiming at farming the timed rewards, y'all should know what you're doing. | ||||||||||||
| #881 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Idk |
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On top of this, I believe UA provides inferior DPS for boss fights in ZA relative to both 0/21/40 and shadowfury builds. I've personally experienced the difference between UA and 0/21/40, my simulation predicts that shadowfury is also better. | ||||||||||||
| #882 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | deneba |
Woo hoo, I have my two-piece Tier 5 bonus and my Solarian trinket!
I'm torn between two similar specs for SSC and TK (all bosses but Vashj and Kael, at whose doorsteps we have arrived), and I could use some advice. Both assume a soul-linked felguard out and about, at least on fights where it makes sense. For context, the raid has two other warlocks, one heavy affliction and one heavy destruction. I'm Demonology for Leotheras whom we've just gotten down recently (so I have no desire to rock the boat and change) and outside of that role am looking to simply make a strong contribution. The first is a 7/44/10 spec that takes instant corruption and 2/2 improved lifetap, plus ISB and Bane. The second is a 0/44/17 that loses the Affliction talents but adds Devastation and Destructive Reach. I guess I'm trying to weigh the intangibles of instant Corruption vs. the 5% bonus to SB crits. Also, I'm trying to weigh Improved Lifetap vs. Destructive Reach. Both comparisons seem more qualitative than quantitative (the spreadsheet doesn't address intangibles all that well) so I was hoping for some advice on what would make more sense. I've currently gone the 0/44/17 route. | ||||||||||||
| #883 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | PSGarak |
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*It is exactly equivalent to a 1/19 = 5.26315789473684210~% increase to stamina and healing. If you need an explanation of the number, or why this is an accurate model, just ask. | ||||||||||||
| #884 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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| #885 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Jimad |
I'd like to ask a question or two about the 01/39/21 build. My 4th piece of T5 is just around the corner, and I'm pretty intrigued by this option. I *think* I might like to try taking advantage of both set bonuses this tier armor provides. In this gear, I'd have about 1200 spell damage completely unbuffed (no FA), spell hit would be capped, with ~25% crit. My concern is about pet management.
Obviously, raiding with the succubus would be my first choice, due to the 10% increase in damage she provides through MD. Is her physical dps on a boss required to really make this build work, or can she just be parked in a corner, fully raid buffed, and completely out of harms way? This (in most cases) would allow me to take advantage of her MD buff, SL, and Demonic Knowledge, but not really concern myself too much with her well being (assuming 2-piece T5 bonus takes care of the damage she incurs through SL damage). Never having raided with an active, dpsing pet before, I have little confidence that I could actually excel at the micro-managing required to keep her alive. Does a fully raid buffed and phase-shifted Imp make any sense whatsoever with this build? If excellent pet management is required with a build such as 01/39/21 (or any non-Felguard demo build variations), and I don't have faith that I'm "the guy for the job", should I just pitch alot of my T5 out the window, in favor of more "UA friendly" gear (more outright spell damage and less crit)? Thank you. P.S. Currently 6/6 SSC & 3/4 TK | ||||||||||||
| #886 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ tdx |
I notice the OP mentions Chaotic Skyfire Diamond as the best meta gem choice for destruction warlocks, which confuses me. Perhaps my 'back of the napkin' math is wrong but Mystical Skyfire Diamond seems much stronger.
For example. In our last Supremus kill my average non-crit shadowbolt damage was 3,822. The fight was 460 seconds long and Mystical Skyfire proc'd 8 times, which is about one proc per 57.5 seconds. On each proc MSD reduced my next shadowbolt from 2.5s to 1.5s cast time, which is an extra 1,528.8 damage. CSD would increase my critical strike bonus damage from 100% to 103%, which means in order to match the damage that MSD is contributing I would have to do 100,191.2 points of critical strike damage in the same amount of time (counting the entire crit damage, not just the bonus). 0.03 * x = 1528.8 x = 1528.8 / 0.03 = 50,860 50,860 + (50,860 - 1,528.8) = 100,191.2 (which is the total damage needed to be done from critical strikes for an extra 3% critical strike bonus damage to equal 1528.8, the damage MSD contributed). That means my critical strike damage alone would have to contribute 1769 dps, which doesn't seem likely. Is the extra 12 crit rating from CSD making up the difference? Because it seems like to large a gap for 12 crit rating to fill. | ||||||||||||
| #887 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ninielin |
Math is incorrect:
hit = 100% , normal crit = 150%, ruined crit = 200%, CSD + ruine = 209%. not 203. | ||||||||||||
| #888 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Fafhrd |
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Edit: ninielin beat me. | ||||||||||||
| #889 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ tdx |
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| #890 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
Right Spec for Current Level of Gear
Forgive me if this is a forbidden question. I've been reading through this thread, and it's really awesome. The amount of information here is tremendous.
I've been away from the game for a while, but I've started to play (raid) again. The spec I have is NOT the right one (or even a good one), so I've been trying to figure out what makes sense for my level of gear. (Current level is Kara/Gruul/Mag). The guild is currently in SSC/TK, having killed up to Tidewalker and Solarian. It seems like either Affliction or Demonology. I've been thinking about switching to Demonology; however I don't want to end up with a spec that doesn't help out the guild. The other warlocks in the raid are a bit better geared than I am, due to my absence. As experts, any info you have would be appreciated, thanks a ton for your time. I'm still reading through the thread, but so far the choice isn't clear to me. Sorry if I missed something, it's a very large thread. EDIT: Thought I would add some quick stats to help, obviously based on current spec. Bonus Damage (No Fel Armor): 873 Bonus Damage (Fel Armor): 1003 Hit Rating: 108 Crit Chance: 15.87% Penetration: 0 Hit Points (No Blood Pact): 9507 Hit Points (Blood Pact): 10578 Last edited by Lianya : 01/10/08 at 1:33 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #891 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Crepe |
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I think there might have been a post in the PTR discussion about CSD? | ||||||||||||
| #892 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lovecraft |
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Minor point and mildy off-topic, but I thought it was worth a mention. | ||||||||||||
| #893 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | LockApologist |
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Assuming ~300 +dmg: A good % of tankadin threat is from Holy shield procs (~500 per block), which obviously don't happen from a stunned mob. Versus ~200 per swing of SoR or up to 200 tick of Consecrate (depending on rank, usually less as max rank is usually too mana intensive for trash). Having a tanking pally myself, unless I need the mob stunned to reduce damage to make it survivable, I ask they not be stunned, if possible. Coupled with the number of casters in ZA (as I believe that's what the SF discussion started on), block threat is already low. This ignores that stunning mobs reduces dmg incoming, increasing the likelihood of OOM (pally form of rage starvation). Not that you shouldn't use SF, if you've spec'd it. But, the stun is not a benefit of SF, from the tanks perspective. | ||||||||||||
| #894 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Demo is very viable in SSC and I have reached 1700 dps with it in T5 gear. The problem with Demo is it can outshine all other specs on some fights, but it suffers horibly on others (Azgalor, Archimonde, Najentus, Gurtog) and is vulnerable to accidental pet damage on others (Supremus P2 for one). Since you are not in T6 raids yet, Demo will work for you quite nice too. You will be more impacted by your low hit than if you were affliction, but you will make up for it with the pet and much higher spell damage. | ||||||||||||
| #895 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Gumibear |
It has to do with the positioning of the talents. Even with 5/5 Suppression, you'll need to take 1 filler point to get to the 4th tier of Affliction talents. Grim Reach and Empowered Corruption look more appealing than Nightfall to me, and taking 2 points in Nightfall after that doesn't leave enough points to max Shadow Embrace and Malediction. If you only went 17 in Destruction and didn't take Improved Imp, you would have enough points, but I never want to play a build in BT that does not include Intensity, meaning I'd need 19 in Destruction and I'd only have 1 point left over after getting UA. Perhaps if I dropped Dark Pact I could still pick up 2/2 Nightfall without losing any raid utility talents, but a lot of Affliction Warlocks feel more comfortable having a secondary source of mana.
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| #896 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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Would you say that Intensity isn't something really needed until BT? I was curious as to why the 'default' Afflication spent in the first thread had 2 points in that, instead of putting them in to something like Shadow Embrace. If you weren't in BT, would you put those points elsewhere? I also assume that Improved Howl isn't useful to get for PvE. It's _occasionally_ nice, but not something I see a lot of use in for raiding. | ||||||||||||
| #897 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
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I do not agree that they would make up for it with a minion and increased spell damage. But that hit rating is awful and needs some serious work before moving into Demonology in my opinion. The only Demonology build I would consider would be 0/40/21, and since this person will be missing with their Shadowbolts all the time, I don't see the point. I think being the Malediction Mule for the raid as they gear themselves would be the best route to go. I had great damage output in 0/40/21, but this is largely because I was hit-capped. Jimad asked: ![]()
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| #898 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Shai |
Easy to test yourself. Install Dr. Damage, compare the expected crit values (the mod assumes 209% crits) with your own numbers for a spell like Immolate to see if they match. If they do, the multiplier is correct.
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| #899 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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Seems like, in the pants, I should get rid of those + crit yellows and put in the + hit ones asap. Once I get enough +hit from pure gear, then I can start re-gemming and looking for more + crit in order to repec. I do need to switch over to Imp Shadowbolt though, so I'm just trying to iron out a few points. (My last post asks about Intensity vs. Shadow Embrace, etc). I really appreciate the input. It helps me to understand a lot of things better about my class and how I can be used to help our overall DPS. | ||||||||||||
| #900 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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A lot of other bosses let you utilize the talent at times, but it's not that much of a benefit. | ||||||||||||
| #901 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #902 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
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Going to +crit gems is silly as Affliction, as +spellhit and +spelldamage gems are far better off for you. You need Improved Shadowbolt, Bane, and Destructive Reach. You need to build out your Frozen Shadoweave set, ASAP. The T4 robe is nothing special, in fact, the only T4 piece I ever wear (check my armory) is the shoulders, and my guild is in TK now and it is only a matter of time before I can upgrade those shoulders, too. Check out how I am gemmed and my gear. You can have almost all of it crafted or pick it up in Karazhan or a couple of Heroics. The Scryer's Bloodgem is a Revered rep item, you should try get that. If you are Exalted with CE, get Ashlyn's Gift, etc. Focus on that +spellhit first and foremost. Be the CoS/CoE mule, use UA, Corruption, Immolate and Shadowbolts. The Terrokar Tablet of Vim is a stupidly easy trinket to get with spelldamage, a Use damage boost, *and* a spellhit bonus. It is probably one of the most under-appreciated trinkets in the game for new raiding warlocks. Once you start really building up your +spellhit rating, you can start to take points out of Suppression. Spend a little bit of time, and seriously, if the spreadsheets are a pain in the ass for you (and they can be), warcrafter.net's sandbox is a great way to get some modeling time done in a much nicer way in their Sandbox, though the talent tree data isn't 100% accurate it will let you do gear swaps/modifications all day long with a great degree of certainty. If you're Malediction, when reviewing the WWS, remember your role in the DPS of the Mages and Shadowpriests as well as your fellow Warlocks. You are a very valuable contributor to any raid's success with that talent. (I would strongly recommend looking at Shadow Embrace too, even if you have to wait until you can start pulling some stats out of Suppression.) But seriously start looking at Frozen Shadoweave and Spellstrike gear -- the only piece I use of T4 are those shoulders just because everything else I have is better, and all I needed was a tailor, an enchanter, and a gemcutter. Last edited by Emolate : 01/11/08 at 2:29 PM. Reason: s/wowcrafter/warcrafter - sorry, thanks for the heads-up | ||||||||||||
| #903 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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Spec: Use the default Affliction spec (see Post #1) with this variant: Drop 2/2 Intensity Move the 2 Intensity points in to either Shadow Embrace (4/5) or remove Shadow Embrace completely and put them in to 3/3 IMP 1/2 Healthstone (Curious as to thoughts on that) Gear: Change my wand back to Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy (+hit instead of +crit) Change yellow games in pants from +crit to +hit gems Either change gems in Robe of Oblivion to +hit or +spell damage, but get the +stam out (Or remove robe entirely) Does that make sense? I'm interested in opinions on the blue text above, those talent points. | ||||||||||||
| #904 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
I didn't notice you had the trial-fire pants. Compare those to how you could gem and enchant Spellstrike pants. Make the decision.
Go with Veiled Noble Topaz wherever you can, if you can do them in 2's you're better off than doing a dedicated +hit and +dmg gem. You will get one more point of damage (10 instead of 9) and the same amount of +spellhit you would with the +8 spellhit gem. I do Intensity because it can come in handy soloing and questing. I pretty much always farm in my raid spec (PVE server). Intensity doesn't hurt to have and I would miss it more than I would miss the other two bullshit talents in the Destruction tree I could use to pad myself out to Ruin. If you aren't going to Ruin, drop Intensity, IMO. And at your gear level, you should ignore Ruin anyway. Destructive Reach and Bane are the most important things in Destruction for you right now. Edit: I recommend putting points into Improved Healthstone depending on the rest of your raiding locks. I am probably dropping mine down to 1/2 because another lock is 2/2 and the other two are 0/2. But since we are probably going to start rotations on TK so we aren't stacked on warlocks, I may as well leave it 2/2. Even if I have the other 2/2 Lock with me, that is 20 big healthstones without waiting for cooldowns. | ||||||||||||
| #905 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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| #906 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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As far as gear, get more hit. Going tailoring and getting spell strike + FSW is something I would have recomended before. But if you have a T5 guild, you are likely to be getting gear fairly soon. I suggest to concentrate on your utility to the guild and wait for the gear to come in. Also, I have seen warlocks increase their DPS by about 30% through changes in their rotations, mods etc, without changing a single piece of gear. Make sure you do things right, and at the right time. The gear will come. | ||||||||||||
| #907 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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I'm trying to fix my stuff up, and reading this board will help me a lot to guide the other locks. For me, I imagine the spell rotation I want to use is: CoS --> UA --> Corr --> Immolate --> Shadow Bolt until DoT refresh needed. (No Siphon Life, unless I'll take periodic damage) I saw somewhere in this thread something about not casting Immolate at that time do to the GCD from Corruption. Is there a better order? I'm trying to figure out how the GCD affects these rotations and how I should deal with it. | ||||||||||||
| #908 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Spline |
Here's a question I tried to answer: When is 4 piece Tier 5 better than 4 piece Tier 6?
I'll narrow the question down by using a 0/21/40 build, and focus on the Head, Shoulder, Leg, and Glove pieces. I'll use my current gear level, which is mid T5-T6. I'll cast nothing but Shadowbolt and Life Tap. First, I found out what stats I lose by downgrading from T6 to T5. I used Rare gems for convenience. I put Runed Living Ruby wherever I couldn't get more DPS stats though a socket bonus. Difference: 33 Hit, 13 Crit, 39 Spell Damage Using Leulier's spreadsheet, I'll equate this to 83 spell damage, or a difference of 67 dps due to stats. Since wearing T6 puts me up to 1555dps, the 4 piece bonus for T6 adds 90dps on top of this. Now, let's see what it takes for 4T5 to be worth 157dps. In its current state, 4T5 is bugged, and doesn't take the bonus spell damage of the affected Corruption into account. We'll ignore this for now. With each Shadowbolt hit, 4t5 increases the damage of any Corruptions on the target by 10%. This damage bonus stacks additively. It's not unreasonable to expect 6 Shadowbolt hits through the duration. If the first Shadowbolt hits before the first tick, we get this list of multipliers for each tick: (110%, 120%, 130%, 140%, 150%, 160%). This gives an average of 135% per tick, or boosting the entire corruption by 135%. If the first tick goes off before recieving a shadowbolt, the average goes down to 125%. Let's say 130%. My destruction-spec corruption does 4500 damage over 18 seconds. 30% of this is 1350 damage, or 75 damage per second. I'll fudge-factor this down to 60 damage per second, saying that I'll have to life tap at some point, there will be gaps between corruptions, etc etc. So, I'll need at least 3 corruptions on the target, plus a fully functioning 4-set bonus, in order for 4T5 to be as good as 4T6. I apologize for all the hand-waving, and welcome any corrections or criticisms. Last edited by Spline : 01/10/08 at 4:09 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #909 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | PSGarak |
Immolate is a difficult spell to model properly. For example, at my gear level (350 more shadow than fire damage) it's still more damage per cast time than shadowbolt, but it results in a dps decrease in the asymptotic case because it costs more mana and the extra time spent lifetapping means I do less damage. The biggest problem with using immolate, especially as an affliction warlock, is clipping your DoT cycle. Never refresh immolate if there is another DoT that needs refreshing instead. UA->Cor->immo will lead to immo and UA needing refreshing at the same time but that's a one-time thing that will be corrected on the next DoT cycle and re-emerge periodically no matter what you do.
As far as imp healthstone, if I were in your situation (everyone else is 2/2) I would go 0/2 instead of 1/2. The important thing is just having them, the extra heal from the talent isn't really that great. I'm sure there's somewhere else in the affliction tree that's a better home for that lonely talent point. | ||||||||||||
| #910 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Silverstorm |
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| #911 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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[Hood of the Corruptor] Tier 5 [Hood of the Malefic] Tier 6 I believe it's only your own corruption, and it's only the base damage (900) you're boosting for the remaining tics. Unless I'm wrong about that, the answer is "never ever". Last edited by Arelenda : 01/10/08 at 4:35 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #912 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Silverstorm |
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If the tank has the imp already, the additional 23.1 Stamina is certainly not as helpful as 5/5 SE. | ||||||||||||
| #913 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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Also sticking in some cheap +hit gems for now, getting rid of the +crit stuff. I'll be working on getting those upgraded as well to the Veiled Noble Topaz. I hope I can replace that Robe soon, and get the Mindblade from Kara. That will help out in the DPS department a lot. Thanks a ton for all your help (everybody who responded). Really helped me to figure out what I should be doing. Edit: Here's the Sandbox Link to her. Neat site. 70 Gnome Warlock Last edited by Lianya : 01/10/08 at 4:35 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #914 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #915 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ tdx |
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Well my first cast was a 1886 crit. I spammed two mana bars worth of searing pain on DR Boom and couldn't get anything higher, so CSD does in fact increase your crit modifier by 9%. | ||||||||||||
| #916 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Spline |
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But you know, if it ever did boost others' corruptions, and take spell damage into account... | ||||||||||||
| #917 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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I thought it buffed your active corruption by 10% of the base, so 90 damage over all tics. If this is true, then one SB would boost an untalented corruption by 15 per tic for the remaining tics. | ||||||||||||
| #918 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #919 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | dotcow |
Hi,
I am currently specced 0/21/40 with 5 points in improved immolate and 5 in emberstorm. My stats are 1400 shadow damage, about 1300 or so fire damage, capped hit, 16% crit without counting talents and about 5% haste (buffed). My question is, is immolate still an important factor in my dps on boss fights as well as trash? We usually have 2-3 fire mages btw. Also is there anything I should switch around as far as stats are concerned? I can't link armory cuz I'm on my iPhone but its dotcow on us destromath if you want to take a look. Thanks | ||||||||||||
| #920 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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| #921 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Experiment |
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Emolate mentioned WoWCrafter.net, and it was completely new to me so I had to track it down. I did manage to find the site itself, which had a different name and URL then I gathered from this quick bit of information. It's Warcrafter.net ...If I found the right thing anyway. Thank you very much for the passing mention. It looks like a very useful site for gear and spec planning. | ||||||||||||
| #922 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Breii |
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| #923 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Crepe |
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As for tailoring, it's probably one of the cheapest and easiest professions to level. If you've got decent cash on hand (around 2-3k), you probably can power level it to 375 without much trouble and still have a lot left for shadowcloth, spellcloth, and primal mights. You'll need thousands of netherweave cloth, but its price should be around 3g/stack (or cheaper if people are stupid, which is common). I spent probably around 3-4k about 9 months ago to get full FSW/Spellstrike from 0 tailoring; the bulk of that was the shadowcloth/primal might cost. Additionally, netherweave was anywhere between 4g to 6g a stack then. Shadowcloth prices were also about double. YMMV, of course, depending on your server's economy (ER is large, release server with a huge "casual" population, which drives prices down). | ||||||||||||
| #924 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #925 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
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Thanks for giving the proper information, sorry for any confusion it may have caused. It will probably be a very valuable tool for any raiding Warlock. | ||||||||||||
| #926 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | taybul |
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End game destro locks don't even invest that many points in fire talents but rather put them in nether prot and/or soul leech. | ||||||||||||
| #927 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Necrostar |
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Also another build I wanted to bring up which most remember is the old SM/Ruin. In my Kara/Gruul/Mag days I was a UA lock , but discovered I was obtaining more crit , hit , with = spell damage in the early stages of T5 content. I believe at this point Ruin > UA. I did something like a Dark Pact + Contagion + Ruin build which worked very effectively (36/4/21). I didn't feel quite ready to make the 0/21/40 jump since I was more like 150 hit / 22% crit. I feel it's a very viable build until your at 0/21/40 level gear which IMO is max hit / 25% crit minimum with talents. | ||||||||||||
| #928 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
How many people in BT/hyjal actually have their T5 chest/head... Even if you can make it to vashj/kael with subpar dps, you'll probably move on and stop running them way before everyone have their T5 tokens. Not to mention there are no T5 boots at all. Getting FSW and spellstrike is the minimum of the minimum effort I would expect from a serious raider.
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| #929 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Spline |
Let me tell you about my fire talents...
I take 5/5 Emberstorm and 3/3 Searing Pain for tanking. I take 0/3 Nether Protection for the same reason. I take 0/3 Soul Leech because when I'm not tanking, I don't need the extra threat from the heals. I take 2/2 Pyroclasm because stunning things never gets old. I cast Hellfire on Hyjal trash. Constantly. | ||||||||||||
| #930 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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I'll name some fights on top of my head where it helps: MH Trash (marginal utility but has prevented some damage at least) Anatheron (Infernal and Swarm are both covered under it. Obviously only works for swarm if infernal procs it. I THINK sleep is also shadow) Azgalor (Rain of fire, not that you should ever be hit by it.) Archimonde (Fear, Grip and Doomfire can all proc it) I've had fear proc it and run me through a doom fire unharmed. I've had a grip proc it and cause 0 damage for 4 ticks before my slow decurser got to me :P BT: First true benefit was on Terron. Last kill it proced 15 times in a 5 minute fight. Haven't been past here but I assume it could be usefull on RoS, Mother and Illidan. Anyways, marginal utility but far better than 4/5 Aftermath IMO. | ||||||||||||
| #931 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Even T4 robe, with an extra slot, it is 21 spell damage lacking compared to FSW. But it has 13 hit rating which equates to 17 spell damage according to my calculations. Is 4 damage worth the time and money necesary to invest in FSW when it will soon be replaced? Likely not. And if the robe is what gives you the 4pc or 2 pc bonus, all of a suden it is even better. Robe of Hatefull Echoes closes the gap even further, although it has crit instead of hit so it's non-damage bonus is much more build dependent. Last edited by Stran : 01/11/08 at 5:01 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #932 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Necrostar |
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| #933 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Suggestive |
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| #934 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
For tanking fights I go demo anyways but I do agree. While a /cancelaura on your SP macro helps a ton, it's still not optimal and trying to tank capernian with NP resulted in a quick run to Ironforge for a respec. However, all points are a matter of choice and I'm just providing some evidence that given you are not tanking, NP is better for raiding locks than 4/5 aftermath.
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| #935 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | clavarnway |
What is the opinion on Boots of Blasting vs FSW Boots for Destruction? Destro scales so damn well with +damage, they are pretty darn good even for Destro. Currently I have FSW with 2 Veiled Noble Topaz.
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| #936 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Necrostar |
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If you have the crit then go Shifting Nightmare. Basically your giving up 25 crit for 20 spell damage with a stam boost. FSW has great spell power, but rather weak stats - so weak I'd have to pass. No substantial hit or crit either. | ||||||||||||
| #937 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | taybul |
Hit is more important to you in the end and even if you can socket the FSW boots you should still go for blasting if nothing else, for the crit the FSW lacks.
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| #938 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
They are very comparable. I chose blasting as my hit was lacking at the time, and the added crit helped ISB uptime. But both are solid choices.
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| #939 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Silverstorm |
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| #940 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | doogless |
If you're hit capped without your boot slot, FSW are better than Shifting Nightmare. In that same situation, I'd place FSW with 2 12 damage gems (81 total damage) over Boots of Blasting (39 damage and 25 crit). Obviously it depends on your other gear and how much spell hit rating the rest of your stuff has.
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| #941 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Necrostar |
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I'd rather lose hit on another piece. You just get too good a itemization on Shifting Nightmare. | ||||||||||||
| #942 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Remember that even pre-T6, capping hit via gems is not hard if your other gear doesn't totally suck (like, you have stuff like CE exalted ring, aran wand, arena weapon etc). Once capped, assuming you're using 5 dmg 4 hit gems to reach that cap, gaining 4 hit rating on an item means 1 of those 5 dmg 4 hit gems can turn into a 9 dmg gem providing extra 4 spell dmg. This is far lower than the "I'm not hitcapped" spell dmg equivalent of hit, and is a more realistic way to look at it, as you *should* be hit capped even in pre-raid gear via gems. Even if your hit sucks so bad that you need 8 hit gems in gear to cap hit, you still only gain 5 dmg by gaining 4 hit from an item, still lower than your 1.3 dmg equivalent for 1 hit rating. The higher your gear level is the even worse hit rating becomes as you have more and better options you can use to cap hit.
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| #943 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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That said, hitcapping when you are at Hydross costs you a lot of crit/dmg through both gear selection and gems. The [Boots of the Shifting Nightmare] do allow you to swap out something like a [Scryer's Bloodgem] | ||||||||||||
| #944 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ Sservis |
Responding to post #340
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Let w = the warrior's tps. After the first shatter, the warlock will have 1.3 * 139 * w / 2 threat. Before the second shatter the warlock will have an additional 1.6 * 300 * w threat. At the time of the second shatter, the warlock has a total of 570.35 * w threat, and the tank has 439 * w threat, and 439 * 1.3 = 570.7, and the warlock has yet to pull. By shattering 51 seconds earlier, the warlock achieves that much more time at 1.6 * w tps rather than 1.3 * w tps. The case you overlooked was that in long fights, there's a fixed time before threat stops mattering, regardless of the fight time. In the W = 1.6 case, it's 7:19, and so first shatter is always at 2:19. Using your terminology this critical time is at 300 *(W - 1.3)/ .65 seconds. Due to this factor, fights longer than the critical time should be shattered at a specific timeframe into the fight, with followup shatters as needed. ![]() W dur 1st shat ------ ----- ------- 1.4 346s 46s 1.5 392s 92s 1.6 438s 138s 1.7 485s 185s In general Warlocks should shatter at the first of your % and the times I've listed, although your % should likely be shaded a bit higher due to abilities and execute range making the last part of any bosses health go faster than the early parts. Last edited by Sservis : 01/13/08 at 6:32 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #945 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Phantasie |
On the topic of threat....Just a quick clarification. Soul leech heals do give the warlock threat?
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| #946 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
Just like other healing spells, this gives threat (it counts as 50% threat, plus modifies like salvation and likely the 10% threat talent as well will reduce it).
Mine has about 90% overheal, so the small 10% that it heals for is hardly any threat. | ||||||||||||
| #947 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Remember it only gives threat when you actually need the heal. If you're threat capped on a remotely regular basis and on those fights soul leech healing doesn't do anything for survivability you should probably consider not speccing into it. Either if you spec into it or not, though, it's going to make a very small difference, both for healing and threat, as both would be very insignificant.
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| #948 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Kimmee |
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It procs a lot on Mother though, and also in P2 Illidan. I don't think anything in RoS procs it....maybe the mana drain in P1, I can't really remember, but I know it does not proc from my own shadow damage in P2 or from the DoT in P3 where it would be really useful. I take Nether Protection mainly because I don't ever have to tank anything, and there is nowhere else better to put the points really. It helps save a bit of healing here and there but it certainly isn't a vitally important talent to have. | ||||||||||||
| #949 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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This talent is also very nice in BGs, there is a lot of Fire and Shadow damage going around. I would have the talent, but I have do tank Caperian and Illidan sometimes so I picked imp Searing Pain for my throwaway talents (I use that spell more than Immolate, but still hardy ever). | ||||||||||||
| #950 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
Speaking of tanking, I've noticed late game (4/5 t6 etc) 0/21/40 that SB spam out TPSs Searing pain. For example in Hyjal you can pull a Frost Dragon off a SP warlock with SBs.
Does the Leulier spreadsheet calc. TPS? | ||||||||||||
| #951 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Crepe |
I don't think so, but you can estimate it by using SP as your filler and multiplying the DPS from it by the threat multiplier for SP - I think it's 2x threat?
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| #952 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Narisane |
In the Eye this weekend, the de facto leader of our warlocks set up groups in a way I thought was incorrect. We had three locks, one 0/21/40, one heavy aff (43/0/18 I think) and one demo (7/43/11). The destro lock was placed in a group with the shadowpriest and some healers, and the afflock was placed in the DPS caster crew with a moonkin and elemental shaman. Demo was providing the imp to the MT group. Gear is relatively comparable for all the locks.
It's my belief that the raid as a whole would benefit more from the DS/destro lock being in the DPS caster crew, receiving the crit buff from the moonkin aura and totem of wrath, and helping to maximize ISB uptime, as well as the fact that a crit from someone with S&F and Ruin provides more raw damage than one from someone without. The other lock made that decision based on "destro needs mana regen more than aff and crit is good for aff too." Given that I was neither playing my warlock nor leading the raid, I went with it, but for future raids I'd like to be able to give him more accurate info regarding setup. Any thoughts? | ||||||||||||
| #953 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ Eph |
Seems obvious in that situation it should have been:
Affliction in tank group. He already has an Imp out. Destruction in Moonkin/Elemental group. More personal damage from 8% more crit. Demonology in Shadow Priest group. Helps to keep the FG up. | ||||||||||||
| #954 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
Does that include 1 pt in imp searing pain, as well as Salvation on the SBing lock?
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| #955 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
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If you call C the time of the "first shatter" where the cooldown is 300, then we need tank's threat (multiplied by 1.3) at the end of the end of the cooldown to be greater than post-shatter lock threat plus accumulated threat: 1.3*(300+C) > 0.65*C + 300W. or C > (300*W/.65) - 600 So given any W, you would see the best time for "first shatter" if the fight goes another 300 seconds. Interestingly, time N (the time of the "last shatter" from my earlier math) eventually precedes time C. For instance in a 7 minute fight (420 seconds), a warlock capable of generating W=1.6 gives N=133 seconds, and C=138seconds. Unless I'm effing up some math somewhere, that means deriving shatter time from the cooldown length is suboptimal for some fight lengths and levels of threat-gen. | ||||||||||||
| #956 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | tedv |
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I'd change the setup from: 1x Elemental Shaman 1x Moonkin 1x Aff Walock 2x Mage 1x Shadow Priest 1x Destro Warlock 3x Healer To this: 1x Elemental Shaman 1x Moonkin 2x Mage 1x Shadow Priest 1x Destro Warlock 1x Aff Walock 3x Healer Now that said, it's true that the destruction warlock can use a shadow priest more than affliction, and they use crit better too. But in the grand scheme of things, Mages need the mana more than Warlocks do, and they use crit even better (due to ignite giving better returns than ruin). If you had one open slot in that caster group, it would go to the destro warlock over affliction though. That way they get both the shadow priest and the 8% crit. | ||||||||||||
| #957 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Narisane |
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| #958 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
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| #959 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Warlocks also scale better with +damage that the wrath of air totem would provide. Fireball has a 115% bonus damage coefficient. a 43% damage multiplier would be applied to that bonus damage. (15% Scorch, using 10% curse, 5% misery, 13% from talents) SB has a 105.71 damage coefficient. 50% Multiplier without ISB. Assuming 50% ISB availability, that would average to 60% multiplier. With that in mind, mages gain 164.5 damage from 100 raw spell power. (no crits included) Warlocks gain 169 damage from same 100 spell power. Things change with crit and haste but I could argue they both scale as well in those stats. Scorch would also reduce mage benefit from +damage but not by much, and CoD would increase it for locks. As long as multiple SPs are available (for both mages and locks) then destro locks should get a shaman over mages. I do agree that Ele shaman, SP, 3 mage group is better for raid sustainability and damage if only one SP is available though. Another note, most mages are hit capped without any gems due to their 13% hit requirement (in T6 gear). Locks on the other hand could benefit more from the 3% ToW hit bonus as we could gem out hit for damage if we could count on the extra hit. | ||||||||||||
| #960 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Warlock will gain more from crit of course, but a mage will gain a lot more by not going oom, and so will the moonkin and elemental shaman. Ele shaman, moonkin and mage are generally top priority for shadow priest, which means the moonkin/ele buff may get a bit wasted, but at least you're not killing other people's personal dps to take slightly more out of the crit buffs.
Yes warlocks get more out of the moonkin/ele shaman buffs, but the shadow priest priority dictates the group composition in this case. | ||||||||||||
| #961 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Harik |
Hi, I usually come to EJ for any help with classes and things, but I've recently been leveling a warlock and playing with talents.
I plan on going affl at 70 until I build up a better gear set (then switching to 21/40 destro) and I was wondering if, in a pure raiding situation, if 5/5 imp corruption to make corruption instant is really worth it. Or can you just put 2 points in it to make it less than the GCD and then throw points elsewhere? I tried searching around, couldn't find it. Because I am under the impression that Corruption is being made instant just for the sake of making it instant, or is there really no other spots to put points in affliction? Thanks in advance. | ||||||||||||
| #962 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | weet |
Well, there are alot of non-essential raid dps talents at the lower end of the affliction tree, so being able to cast corruption while moving is generally going to be more useful for raiding and non-raid content (say, vs fel concentration in the case that you needed suppression), hence why people go 5/5 - and also the lack of needing suppression when having a high hit rating meaning there is nowhere else to put tier 1 points.
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| #963 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Anthraxx |
Hello,
I've been raiding as affliction since Kara, and now being 4/5 MH 5/9 BT I'm thinkin' hard about going 0/21/40. I'm generally ok on dmg meters, obviously better on high mobility/multi-target dps fights, but falling behind on shorter/straight nuke Teron-like encounters. Pretty standard UA build, 197hit, 1404 shadow dmg raid buffed w/o card trinket procs, ~18% crit not counting devastation, 4/5 T5. The pros of this build are infinite mana and pretty good survivability with siphon life and very nice life drain ticks, malediction, shadow embrace (usually have 4/5 due to 1 point stuck in HS talent), having an imp out for low hp spanners. If I went destro that would leave the raid with none of the features mentioned above. Is it worth it? Will my dps even increase after respeccing but with only 21% base crit...? Where is the line after which your personal dps gain prevails over affliction dps + raid utility? | ||||||||||||
| #964 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Gumibear |
We talk about crit so much because we tend to have the best crit scaling of the caster classes, but we also have the best spell damage scaling. We should all know by now that crit is not the main stat of a destruction warlock. You will be fine with the other numbers you quoted. More crit will help you. Spell haste will help too. Good DPS is about getting the right mix of stats, not just stacking one.
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| #965 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Anthraxx |
Well, being high on dps meters is ofc fun but will I make up for the loss of other utility skills?
How big dps/survivability impact on raid will lack of affliction lock have? Last edited by Anthraxx : 01/15/08 at 8:42 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #966 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Silaine |
In my opinion, Shadow Embrace is useful when learning new encounters and when your MT has trouble staying alive. Tier 5 and 6 has plenty Stamina, so perhaps the imp buff isn't that necessary anymore. Consider changing to destro and see how the playstyle suits you and how the raid fares without SE and imp.
I'm staying affliction until I get my second tier 5 piece. Might put it off until Solarian drops Void Star Talisman...which'll happen in my dreams. | ||||||||||||
| #967 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | gargosch |
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| #968 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | notimeremains |
Spell hit?
hi guys!
Arelenda thanks for creating this post, alot of mysteries revealed for me, so thanks and /salute where i still have some mysteries about is spell hit; currently i have this /me and i have 131 spell hit rating, i think this is excl. the suppression @ 5/5. now i wanted to change my specc from solo/pve/pvp to full pve raiding specc. but when can i drop some points in suppression? do i need to change my gems to + spell hit gems or not? my second question is what do you think of my gear... i know my main hand weapon needs an upgrade : dagger (kara) / sword (gruul) / sword (za) just wont drop. although we do them each week. so spellblade from pvp honour is currently on my menu list... im also working on the trinket from the badges... but apart from that what do you think? WTB comments... THANKS IN ADVANCE! | ||||||||||||
| #969 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Katinsha |
Value of CSD in terms of spell damage?
Editted it, because I found one of my answers by using the search function better.
How much would one have to value the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond in terms of a spell damage equivalent with a buffed crit rate of 30% and 1600 spell damage when 0/21/40 specced. I ask this because it will influence the value of meta socketable items greatly. My other question was if CSD made crits from shadow bolt do 209% damage with Ruin. Turns out it does (150% x 3% = 154.5%, with Ruin the crit damage bonus is doubled, so 209%). Last edited by Katinsha : 01/15/08 at 12:05 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #970 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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I get about 36 dps with your stats. For endgame locks contemplating a t6 helm, it's better than the [Hood of Hexing] in all situations. | ||||||||||||
| #971 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
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It is stated several times in this thread, and anywhere else of any substance, that +spellhit until you are hit-capped is the first and foremost priority of any raiding Warlock. It is not even worth discussing if you need to more spellhit. Of course you do. You can stop using Suppression when it is no longer compensating for your spellhit on Affliction spells. It is trivial to get to 200+. Gems, the Terrokar Tablet of Vim, even the quest-reward staff from Consortium all have spellhit. Your Greatsword of Horrid Dreams has spellhit, which the Gruul sword does not. Craftable gear (Spellstrike and Frozen Shadow Weave) will put you well within the requirements for spellhit, which you have blown in order to put spelldamage gems in everything. I would recommend you actually read this thread to answer all of your questions. Get hit-capped. Get hit-capped. Get hit-capped. Edit: Your URL is even on Warcrafter. It is trivial to model your Warlock by making appropriate gem and enchantment changes. Last edited by Emolate : 01/15/08 at 12:40 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #972 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #973 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
Typically 1 point in searing pain or Emberstorm yes. Both locks would have salvation as it's Hyjal trash. The idea is that Shadowbolt scales so much better than searing pain that it produces more TPS in T6 content.
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| #974 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Ammanas |
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As far as you're personal DPS, it will go up. Alot. I went from averaging around 1000-1100 DPS as affliction to 1400-1500+ as 21/40 - and I only have ~22 paperdoll crit raid buffed. Keep in mind, a big part of this is the fact that as Affliction you are usually dropping an imp in the tank group and as 21/40 you usually get some kind of group benefit (spriest/WoA/ele sham/BM hunter/whatever). Like Gumi said, even as 21/40 crit is still the fourth best stat for Warlocks. Because of all the multipliers (Sacced Succy/S&F) damage scales insanely well with 21/40. You are going to want to prioritize Spell Hit until capped (obviously) > Damage > Haste (much better % per point ratio than crit) > Crit. As far as the whole crit in relationship to ISB uptime thing, there has been a lot of math done in this thread(check out pages 21/22) and stacking crit doesn't help ISB uptime as much as you might think. Its also easy to forget that haste also helps ISB uptime, because you are casting more SBs. Last edited by Ammanas : 01/15/08 at 3:07 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #975 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Suggestive |
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| #976 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
Yeah, dropping everything for hit isn't a good idea. There were points in my upgrade path where I was able to do more damage with +12% hit due to items without hit giving more DPS.
Use the spreadsheet and do the math (or get Pawn to do the math for you) to see if an item is an upgrade. | ||||||||||||
| #977 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
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This is one 'flaw' in our class that no Devs seem to notice as there have been no significant PVE changes to our talents in the past year. 40/41 demo can be great if the pet can live, however Affliction is just terrible late game. Probably 95% of Illidan-farming, non-PVP spec warlocks are 0/21/40. Last edited by rochan : 01/15/08 at 3:59 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #978 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | awakened |
So we are working on Vashj now and I get to help kill the elementals plus I am on DoT duty for the elites/striders as they show up (I'm deep affliction spec). I'm in a group of 3 on the north side, grouped with a resto druid and a DPS warrior. Now if I focus on the task of killing elementals, all is good on our side. But if I take off to locate and DoT the elites/strider, the warrior and druid get overrun with elementals. Basically I'm usually way out of range of the elites/strider when the call for DoTs comes, so I have to get in range. Is there some macro or whatnot I can be using to make it easier to target the elites/strider? Tabbing only seems to grab the elementals because they are closest to me. I figure there must be a trick to this because right now it's just plain chaos.
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| #979 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
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70 spelldamage difference in the Magus Blade and the Greatsword. Magus Blade gives crit instead of hit. Would you rather have 12 hit, or 70 spelldamage? Their current spellhit is 131. I didn't take time to model the gems, but it is likely they could get 20 more spellhit and still retain socket bonuses (which are frequently spellhit for FSW pieces). So would I rather see a lock show up to a raid with 151 hit, or 131? Even if they have another 110 spelldamage from Magus Blade and +40 spelldamage enchant? On the other hand, I just checked their enchants on gear and they're needing a tune-up, in my opinion. Get spellstrike on the gloves, for example. That would allow you to get 4 more spellhit and start using the Magus Blade. They can use the Magus Blade if they have it. They don't. The Greatsword helps them more, at this point, IMO. The good news is that it is easy to fix most of the problems. Right now that Warlock has medicore spellhit, needs a serious re-gemming and optimized enchantments on their gear. The only piece of Warlock T4 I wear is the shoulders. The rest is replaced easily in Karazhan and Badge rewards with better stats than T4 gives you. | ||||||||||||
| #980 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate | |||||||||||||
| #981 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
If +hit is only worth 1.1-1.3 spell power, the statement "cap hit before you worry about anything else" is silly, particularly for an affliction lock who can subsidize lack of hit with spare talent points into suppression.
You should always be checking the value of the item rather than following a rule of thumb like hit>all. When I was in t4ish gear, using t4 gloves/shoulders for the set bonus was better than using the attumen gloves even though I dropped about 40 hit rating. I remember being at 12% hit for some time even though I could have reached 202 since I was gaining enough other stats to make it worthwhile. | ||||||||||||
| #982 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
Without a doubt 70 damage.
Look at the spreadsheet, if you want to theorycraft please use the tools we all do. At my gear levels, which are significantly higher than the original posters, 1 hit is worth 1.75 spell damage. Hit scales very well with +damage and + crit that is why it's so important to max. However, you should not sacrifice too much for it. 12 hit rating would be worth 20 damage for me. For him likely even less. If he has suppression and that maxes his hit for affliction, even less. Even if he were to put +40 spell damage on his GoHD it would not be as good as the Magus Blade. | ||||||||||||
| #983 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
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Knowing 12/20 for you helps me find that point of diminishing return. I will try to model this for myself instead of trying to stay at 200 no matter what. What really kills me is that I have an affliction lock with no points in Suppression doing more damage than me, as well as missing less with Shadow Bolt. It is driving me batshit. So clearly I am missing something critical, and I thank you guys for calling it out. | ||||||||||||
| #984 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
When I look at the spreadsheet, using 18% crit 1400 shadow 1200 fire 6% hit from gear I get 1 hit rating equivalent to 0.9 spell dmg... If you're close to the hit cap it even goes down to 0.85 spell dmg. So as affliction once you have 6% hit from gear there is pretty much no reason to gem for hit (unless the socket bonuses are actually worth it, which is not the case for frozen shadoweave and spellstrike). Some items with hit will be good anyway due to the very low value of crit and many items having either crit or hit on them, but it doesn't mean hit is important for affliction.
Not to mention fights with movement, multi-dotting, non-boss mobs etc can shift it even more against hit. For destruction hit is so powerful you stack it regardless of how useful it's going to be, as even if it's not helping you full time it's still pretty damn strong that it's worth capping. For affliction it's the opposite - not only it's weak it's not even useful all the time anyway. at best evaluate hit for affliction at 0.9 dmg at or whatever the spreadhseet tells you. Same goes for destruction - as in the spreadsheet value for hit is the *maximum* value of it and in reality it's less because of adds. | ||||||||||||
| #985 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | weet |
Have to agree that prioritising hit as affliction is not really a smart thing, past 6% at low gear levels. Shadow Bolt/Immolate is around 40% of your damage, so past 6% from gear is really diminished value that point for point damage is alot stronger. Examples of upgrades that are good are say Moroes cape --> Prince Cape (-6dmg +18 hit). Example of a bad upgrade that someone taking the advice to 'prioritise hit cap before all else' as affliction, would be Orb of the Soul Eater ---> Netherspite Offhand.
Yes soulshatter can be related to this discussion, but is really not a huge thing at the gear level we are talking about. Perhaps some discussion of this should be included in the OP? | ||||||||||||
| #986 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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| #987 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | weet |
Ok, well you could just add in something like:
'Due to Suppression being able to be taken without losing core raiding talents, unlike Destruction and Demonology builds, the value of spell hit for affliction builds is lower once 6% from gear is reached. Shadowbolt and Immolate are roughly 40% of an affliction builds dps on a single target. Therefore while working towards the hit cap on all spells is ideal, +dmg should be focused on moreso.' and in the basic gear choices: Spell hit (to cap with suppression) > Spell damage > Spell hit (to cap without suppression) > Spell Haste & Crit | ||||||||||||
| #988 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Anthraxx |
Thanks for feedback guys. Having utility in 1 hand and dmg in an other I just asked tank how does he feel about taking 5% more beating and he said he could probably handle.
So... I went destro yesterday to say hello to Kaz'rogal and Azgalor and... LOL... 1-button-smashy-smashy stand there chain throwing these 8k bolts and topping meters o_O I never considered wow pve to require much skill and brain (lets say, compared to w3) but this is hilarious :P Yes, I'll stay destro, yes I love these big numbers but come on..., this shouldn't be that easy... | ||||||||||||
| #989 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Phantasie |
And you did it on 2 horrile destro fights! Silence and extra taps from mana drain just lowers your dmg. Go get you some Gorefiend. Oh and watch out for that P2 RoS *wink*
Haste is a good stat, if they itemized it a little more evenly with the other stats. As of right now its kind of silly to get more than, say 80ish passive haste, because you start falling under the +hit cap and take a big hit in +dmg. If they threw some sockets on the existing haste items I wouldn't complain. Also even with the new spell queueing thing they implemented not too long ago, I notice the still existing need for stopcasting when i use drums of battle + skull of gul'dan or heroism. Seems to get worse the faster my shadowbolts are flying :/ That brings me to another topic. Not sure if warlock professions has been discussed in a while (besides omgfrozenshadowweave). I recently dropped alchemy for Leatherworking. Has any other end game locks done so? Right now I'm rocking ring enchants and [Drums of Battle]. Nice boost for myself and my group. Heroism+[The Skull of Gul'dan]+Drums= 1.66 sec shadowbolts (according to my old drdmg), add in the icon or ZA trinket for extra pew. Just skull+drums is 2.15 sec bolts. Drums last 30seconds, however use a global cooldown to cast (which the only downside). Last edited by Phantasie : 01/16/08 at 11:18 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #990 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #991 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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| #992 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Triper |
Sorry to break up the current train of thought here, but I'm in need of assistance from the warlock community. I'm the DPS Theorycrafter of my guild so to speak.
I'm trying to work with one warlock of mine, who has been putting out poor numbers, and last night I suggested he go affliction (seeing that with Suppression he'd be hit capped with affliction spells) and told him that using a UA -> Immo -> Corr -> SL then spamming shadow bolts until DoTs needed to be refreshed would net more dps than his former drain life spam. I also stressed how clipping off the last tick of his DoTs would be worse than a second of DoT downtime. I also gave him a macro to use his +dmg trinkets in conjunction with him casting UA, so he would get the benefit on his DoTs every time he refreshed them (and the trinket was up) Now his gear... he was a little confused as to what he was going for. His staff isn't enchanted and his trinkets aren't good for affliction. I've told him some good upgrades for those slots and to fully enchant his gear. He's a nice guy, and seems to like raiding. But even after this long chat he was still putting out abysmal numbers (although he did improve a bit). He went from approximately 300-350 dps to 420-475 dps. Shouldn't a warlock with his gear be putting out better numbers than that? Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory P.S. - Don't have any WWS parses with him in them, sorry guys. Last edited by Triper : 01/16/08 at 1:43 PM. Reason: Added more info. | ||||||||||||
| #993 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
Just have him spec 0/21/40 and tell him to spam SB. If he still sucks then cut him loose.
He should be doing more like 700-1000 dps. | ||||||||||||
| #994 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Simplifying him to a 0/21/40 would go a long way as it's one spell + curse. Getting Quartz so he can account for his latency and start casting as soon as his cast is in "the red" would net about 10% to 30% dps increase depending on his latency numbers (this is anecdotal from my personal experiences). With his gear and no additional buffs (consumables, shaman) assuming a SP in the raid he should be putting out 950 DPS in the 0/21/40 build spamming SB and being on CoE duty (no damage curse) With CoD he could hit 1080 Affliction is a more difficult playstyle. On a single target, in his gear he should be hitting 980 dps. He would also be providing additional utility in the form of SE and Malediction. This is assuming good dot uptime, which requires anticipating UA running out and starting a cast preemptively, and using taps/dark pacts when a SB cast would cause a dot to run out for over a second. | ||||||||||||
| #995 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Triper |
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I guess I'm putting myself into his shoes too much, I can handle multiple things going on at the same time, seeing as I'm probably the only one in my guild having done this content before. (albeit on a healer). And I know I'll be shot for this, but we don't currently have ANY raiding shadow priests... Yeah... That's right... I'll forward him some more tips, I guess I'll just pick up his respec for this time, seeing as I suggested the last one. P.S. - I'll see if I can get a WWS soon. Last edited by Triper : 01/16/08 at 2:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #996 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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As people have suggested: either make him the raid support slave (Malediction, Shadow Embrace, Imp Blood pact) and live with his crappy dps, or have him spec 0/21/40. The latter is by far the easiest build to play. Arelenda's little guide for warlocks (that suck) - get Omen - get Quartz - get a damage meter - spec 0/21/40 - gearwise: hit = crit = damage (= haste, but that's probably not really worth mentioning) - spam Shadowbolt. Lifetap per 3-5 bolts. Don't string multiple taps together. - learn how to time bolts so you don't lose time to lag | ||||||||||||
| #997 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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- tap while moving if fight requires movement (most do) - don't tap during DPS race portions of a fight, use pots if necesary as they do not trigger a GCD | ||||||||||||
| #998 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
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| #999 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Necrostar |
Just curious. Has anybody put together a "wish list" of gear that would put out the most dps as 0/21/40 ? I would think that 4pc T6 has to be in the equation given that it contributes 6% more to shadowbolts. The piece that you wouldn't use is something I've pondered. There are 2 items with a [151] rating , Robes of Rhonin & Cowl of The Illidari High Lord that I would consider as replacements to that 5th T6 item. Also Zhar'doom vs Tempest of Chaos + Chronicle of Dark Secrets.
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| #1000 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Take a look at this. Best At Slot is my wish list of sorts, Staff is the same list with just staff subbed in. Stran - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger | ||||||||||||
| #1001 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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The [Robes of Rhonin] are a sidegrade from t6 and are not worth using. Eventually you might want all 3 in case you pick up replacements for t6 shoulders or gloves in Sunwell. That said, I grabbed the Vestments. Our pallies are getting the first batch of t6 chests. Last edited by Krazen : 01/17/08 at 9:39 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1002 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Phantasie |
To break the t6 four piece, the sunwell loot would have to be insanely good. I foresee me keeping 4piece until expansion.
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| #1003 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Talosh |
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Talosh - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger | ||||||||||||
| #1004 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Anthraxx |
@Triper
Making a guy with 84 hit play 0/21/40 is the last resort to be honest. Try to teach him proper rotations in deep affli, it's not that hard with dot timer addon (NECB is rly good from my experience). A bit different question: how good are the [Destruction Potion]s? 2% crit 120 dmg is SWEET, but... 15secs? seems short... And you're using your pot CD up which might hurt in these oh-shit-moments On the other hand popping it during bloodlust... mmmmmmm, pure love! EDIT: lets assume I'm able to squeeze out 6 sbs during this effect (no haste, zero lag). How is potential dmg gain looking compared to, lets say mana pot vs. 2 gcd of tapping + life loss. | ||||||||||||
| #1005 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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As for the potions: 2% crit and 120 damage for 6 shadowbolts is on average the same as +12% crit and 720spellpower for one bolt, say 1200-1500 damage, and that's being very, very generous. A mana potion gives you two GCDs, or roughly a shadow bolt's worth, say 2000-2500. This is ignoring multipliers like CoS, DS, Misery, Shadoweaving, they work for both. Under normal circumstances, the mana pot will win by a mile. Last edited by Arelenda : 01/17/08 at 7:56 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1006 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Anthraxx |
Hmm? If I didn't see ur armory I'd simply say u're crazy, but you seems experienced so I'll try to figure why would u let any lock go destro with 84 crit...
Maybe in _this_ case that low hit won't be gamebreaking, BUT in general he'd do MUCH better as affliction after learning basic rotations. ![]()
Concluding...These pots will shine in short encounters like maybe Akama (no mana problems, although maybe not the boss u'll want to pot for ), Teron (pew pew like there is no tomorrow cause in 5 secs u can become the ghost) and fights where u need fast burst dmg (Kael p2 for example). For longer stuff mana pot looks better. | ||||||||||||
| #1007 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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You forgot Essence of Anger. | ||||||||||||
| #1008 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Emolate |
That would be, what, 6.5% of the 16% to be hit-capped. How is that more than enough for Destruction? When I run those digits through the spreadsheet they cry. With 6.5% hit, they would be much better served UA/Affliction with Suppression, wouldn't they? | ||||||||||||
| #1009 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | jaslion |
^ correct
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| #1010 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if the guy was capable of maintaining a dot rotation, he'd be playing a bit better than he is.
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| #1011 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Hit scales better than damage and crit, and even haste. But this deity-like worship of it is ill-conceived. It's better than damage point for point. You get the most dps increase from it. But you in no way need 16% hit to go destro and remain competitive with affliction. The more damage and crit you have, the more hit becomes important. With his 800ish damage, hit just wasn't that influential. My numbers were all generated with the spreadsheet, this is not guesswork. | ||||||||||||
| #1012 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | leye |
Yesterday I read in this thread, that it would be a good idea to have my imp buffed w/ wisdom for increased mana regen. And last night during our Magtheridon run I asked one of our pally's to buff him. He told me that he could not buff him.
Am I missing something or was the information that I read incorrect? Thx | ||||||||||||
| #1013 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #1014 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | leye |
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| #1015 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
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-Nethervoid cloak over Illidari, which allows you to use Seacaller boots instead of Nightmare (imo you should only use Illidari if you have an elemental sham). -You want to put 3 reds in your 3 slot items and two orange/purple combos in 2 slot items (for the meta gem). This maximizes DPS. Also I was going to ask how the Exalted Hyjal Ring compares to a 2nd haste ring. I'd assume the difference is very very negligible, perhaps in favour of the haste ring. But I dont really want to spend massive points on a second ring, when the Hyjal one is free. | ||||||||||||
| #1016 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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- consistent damage on a boss-level creature: +hit is useless on (almost) all adds and trash. - ideal dot rotations: clearly not the case here - no gear swapping: he might have destro suited gear banked Let us know how it goes! | ||||||||||||
| #1017 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #1018 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Seir |
Is the latest Leulier 1.19 bugged for anyone else?
When I opened it up this morning to test the new raid ISB feature I found it filled with Err:508's. I'm running Open Office to read the spread sheet but have never had problems with it reading XL before. | ||||||||||||
| #1019 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Gumibear |
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| #1020 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | PSGarak |
Your imp will also pick up group buffs (stam/spt/int/mark) while unshifted. Always unshift your imp during buffs, including after wipes. It's better for you if he's buffed, and it's easier for everyone involved if he just gets the buffs when you do rather than having to redo buffs for him specifically. Int, spirit, kings, wisdom, and mark will all increase his regen, although he seems to have an extraordinarily poor spirit->regen ratio. I don't recall of the top of my head but it's in the neighborhood of 30:1, compared to 4:1 for player characters. He benefits from BoW as normal.
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| #1021 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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That is pretty huge. For Affliction it is about half the gain, so those guys will not have as much of a problem with Sunwell items. | ||||||||||||
| #1022 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | fleshy |
I recently encountered the same error. The problem does not lie with the spreadsheet. Open Office Calc did not import the named ranges causing many of the formula to break.
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| #1023 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Triper |
I'm going to be taking some WWS from our SSC tries tonight. I'll get them posted for you guys to pick at.
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| #1024 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ Eph |
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From Wowhead's varied math comments it seems that the buff is actually 15s not the 10 on the tool tip, it has a 10% proc rate, and its internal CD is 45s. Sadly I'm no scientist and really don't know how to use those numbers properly. Perhaps someone can take it from here. The best I can do is guessimate the proc is worth about 20dmg. If thats the case, dual haste rings do seem to be the way to go, though they are really close. | ||||||||||||
| #1025 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Seir |
:/ Thank you so I guess I'm stuck with 1.18 until it's open office is changed or the SS somehow is adjusted for OO.
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| #1026 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Promyvion |
Hey all, I have a question about typical affliction DPS output.
I recently started raiding BT/Hyjal on my warlock after playing a hunter for a couple years, and it seems that my average DPS is lower than what it should be. I'm 41/0/20, and typically put in the tank group for blood pact, so I don't get a totem or any other group-specific buffs. Also, I use Curse of Shadows/Elements, so no Doom or CoA either. My average DPS seems to be around 1000, sometimes higher. My usual starting DoT rotation is Immolate>>Siphon Life>>Unstable Affliction>>Corruption, then Shadow Bolts until the DoTs need to be refreshed. I have Quartz, so I can see when DoTs are about to expire, and do my best to recast so that they are reapplied as soon after the last damage tick as possible. My best guess is that I'm screwing up my DoTs somehow, but I don't see how. Any help or advice is appreciated. Here is my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory And a WWS from Naj'entus: WWS Loading... Hmm, Armory doesn't seem to be updating and shows me in PvP gear, here are my stats in case it doesn't update soon: 1219 shadow damage with fel armor 989 fire damage with fel armor 192 hit rating (15.22%) 15.18% crit I have 3 pieces of T6, 3/3 FSW, and the rest is tier 4-5 level epics, using Quagmirran's Eye and Icon of the Silver Crescent for trinkets. | ||||||||||||
| #1027 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | weet |
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With the stats I use in the DPS spreadsheet, this would mean Haste ring would come out 0.3 dps higher on personal dps, but with Imp.SB raid contribution, Hyjal Ring is higher by around 3 dps. So they are effectively the same assuming the 21.27 figure is near accurate (i have a feeling it is probably a little overestimated), and warlocks have a similar rate of offensive spells cast as priests. More info on the proc rate would be the best way to gauge this. In shorter fights, the Hyjal ring will also tend to have a higher than average uptime which makes it better. But I guess it can also proc at opportune or inopportune times whereas the haste is static, so it is at more mercy of the RNG. If given the choice I would probably wear 2x RofAK or 1x RofAK and Mana Attuned band (if hit is needed), since I would prefer to have less random stats (crit also being more random) but it really depends on what you can get, and the difference is very small either way. (ie. in my case I have 1 of each ZA/Hyjal/trash ring and currently don't need hit from rings, but will when I got the cape off of council, meaning getting a second trash ring now would only be worth it if no-one else wanted it) | ||||||||||||
| #1028 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Anyway the 1.1% extra crit on the Hyjal ring makes the Ring noticeable better for imp SB, so your raid's shadow damage will be higher with Hyjal ring, plus the ring is "free". Note for trash dps, nothing can beat 2 trash drop rings. | ||||||||||||
| #1029 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Shadow priests only cast max 1 MB every 7.5 seconds in a normal rotation and SWD every 12 seconds, often a little less due to prioritization of other spells or not wanting to get killed by SWD. Rest of their spells benefit from ISB uptime but do not eat ISB charges as far as I know. Overall the result is shadow priests eat a lot less shadowbolt charges than warlocks, gain a lot due to decent amount of non-ISB-consuming dmg, but "waste" more dmg every time they eat a proc as their ISB-consuming spells aren't as powerful as shadowbolts (but they simply have to use them or their DPS will suck terribly).
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| #1030 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Katinsha |
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As gear choices go, I would go purely for spell damage. But it is hard judging from only numbers whether you are making gearing errors. Last edited by Katinsha : 01/18/08 at 8:46 AM. Reason: grammar | ||||||||||||
| #1031 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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| #1032 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Keep in mind DPS is not the important stat, damage done is. As far as I know WWS still calculates DPS by dividing damage by DPS Time, as affliction your DPS time should be near 100%, where as other classes see slightly lower dps times. | ||||||||||||
| #1033 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
A couple of questions.
We are about to do Leotheras and I'm going to be one of the ones getting the FR gear to tank him. I'm planning to repec Demo (this weekend), but before I changed up I wanted to ask a couple of things. 1. In the cookie-cutter specs, I see 1 point put in to Improved Corruption, but I'm not sure why this is done. I'm guessing something to do with the GCD? I tried searching the thread but wasn't able to find an answer. If I missed it, I apologize. 2. Other than for Leotheras, when I'm doing normal DPS, What is a good spell rotation? I've been Affliction almost the entire time I've been end-game raiding BC content. Would I bother to throw Corruption up anymore? Should it be something like "Curse --> Corruption --> Immolate --> Shadow bolt"? I was considering something like this, which is a tad different than the listed specs, but wasn't sure if it was a good or bad idea, and if I was missing out on some stuff by not taking the other suggested talents. Proposed spec Also, if there is anything I should know about Leo that you think is interesting, please let me know. I've read up on the fight and I think I know what to do, but personal experience can always be a better teacher. Thanks a bunch. So far, these forums have been an amazing source of info and have really helped me to change my play style / gear choices. Last edited by Lianya : 01/18/08 at 11:58 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1034 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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I have had better track record with 6/44/11 just FYI, but see what suits you better :P As for the Leo fight ... Buff the pet. make sure you have some hit gear, need solid hit for building threat. Spam searing pain. When Leo becomes unbanished, immediately throw a COD on him. It will hit him just as he transitions to demon phase, building some solid agro. Keep Salv off obviously! Reapply doom during DEMON phase, at about 14 seconds left of it. this will cause it to hit at the beginning of next demon phase. Don't get hit by whirlwinds. When he splits, your threat won't need as much work, feel free to move a bit if needed to avoid whirlwind. Can also throw some dots on human Leo to help. Pet does not get hit by the ae so can keep him following you at all times. if using SL, make sure healers know :P Thats about it, good luck | ||||||||||||
| #1035 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
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| #1036 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Bogeywoman |
Your spec looks pretty good for Leo. I wouldn't bother with going to ruin in destro, though, at your current gear level. Your crit level is not super high, and you will be spamming searing pain so you won't be getting interrupted or pushed back very much.
Here's how I tanked Leo: WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator Get in a group with a shaman or a paladin whose job it is to keep you and your pet alive. Also have a tree and a priest help out especially near the end of the demon phase when you have a lot of debuffs stacked on you. Put on about 10k worth of hp gear. Park the felpuppy in a corner about 25 yards away from you. Soulstone yourself and have any other warlocks have one ready to resoulstone you in the event of your demise. Notify the healers that it will need hots during your tanking phase. At the pull, open with curse of doom -- it will land during his demon phase if you cast it every time he turns into a human. When there's a few seconds to go before demon, try to time a shadowbolt to land right as he goes into demon phase and then start spamming searing pain. At around 10k aggro you are probably uncatchable in dps by anyone else in your guild, so let them know to come in. Don't stop spamming searing pain. If your pet dies, instant resummon, put it on stay, and move to get it safe from the explosions. Let people know what's going on. If you die, you're going to lose aggro, so all healers need to switch to the new 'tank' until you're back up. Repeat putting curse of doom on him every time he turns into a human. At 15%, you will be tanking the demon for the remainder of the fight. Have your dedicated healers spread out so they don't all get rended by the human form whirlwind. You have a very high probability of death during this phase due to the stacked debuffs, so the rest of the raid needs to stay calm and safe but get the fight over with as rapidly as possible. Spam searing pain for a little while, but -- here's the trick -- start dpsing the human form once you get a reasonable level of aggro, with dots and shadowbolts, to help bring him down. You may very well get rended and get full debuff stacks so the healers need to be very responsive to your needs. Fortunately you can get aggro back after soulstoning without much trouble if you fall down in this phase. 1/5 corruption is for people who figure that the first point provides the most benefit, as it improves casting time to where it fits in to a global cooldown. In practice it's dubious as to whether you cast corruption when it has a casting time. Since Imp Life Tap is a truly excellent talent for DPS, and since there aren't a lot of builds where you have 1 point floating that can't be better used on, e.g., Demonic Tactics or a Felguard, 1/5 corruption is situational at best. The spell rotation for the listed spec is to keep the curse up, keep immolate and corruption up, and otherwise pew pew with the shadowbolts. | ||||||||||||
| #1037 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Bogeywoman | |||||||||||||
| #1038 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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Just reviewed all of my guilds WWS parses, not once did my pet receive damage from Leothras that was not physical damage. Save for the first 3 kills when I thought pets got AEd as well, I have always had my pet on follow. Last edited by Stran : 01/18/08 at 12:40 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1039 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #1040 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Bogeywoman |
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| #1041 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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About Leotheras: He alternates between 45 seconds human phase and 60 seconds demon phase. The first human phase is an exception, it lasts 60 seconds (counting from when he unbanishes) Warlock dps on Leo: During human phase: whirlwind every 12 seconds, with 15 seconds cooldown on it (I think, I might be a few seconds off here, it's been a long while since I tanked Leo) - when he breaks or resets aggro you want to start applying dots (corr/CoA/immolate in that order). This is both so you don't draw aggro by nuking before the tank has aggro, and because it will allow them to run out before the 27+ second cycle finishes. During demon phase: apply dots at the start, refresh them once. SB as filler. Warlock tanking at Leo: focus on 365 FR (70 aura, 70 demonology, so 225 FR on gear is capped). Everything else in stamina. 14000+ health is recommended. Spellpower is useful but should not be priority. You can easily compensate for it with consumables. Soulstones on the tanking warlock are a tremendous help. Due to the nature of the fight, if you die near the end of demon phase this allows the raid to recover, since you'll be ready by next phase. It was not uncommon for me to die once of twice on successful kills if Leo got lucky with no-resist streaks. Note that due to the stacking debuff, random people swallowing one or two bolts tend to live. Also, you are most likely to die near the end of the demon phase. Spam Searing pain for threat. Use Curse of doom for initial aggro. It's incredibly good for it. Apply it when he unbanishes (first phase = 60 seconds), and during every demon phase with 13 seconds on the clock until human phase (13s + 45s human phase = 58 seconds, with a two second margin). I bet you will forget COD the first few times you do this, as refreshing the CoD while watching your health bounce up and down like a yoyo is usually the last thing on your mind. Still it is definitely worth it, as 9k damage the first 2 seconds extra tends to give you a wide margin, allowing dps to go nearly all out from the start. Have the raid time their dps so he goes below 15% at the START of the demon phase. It is definitely worth holding dps to do it, as it will ensure two things: a. no inner demons will be up. b. it allows Leo to be hit during the emote, allowing for 5 seconds of threat free dps. He's not targeteable if he does the emote in human phase. Do make sure people hold dps right after emote and get away because he can WW right off the bat. His WW can still be on cooldown from human phase, but even then, have people run off and let the tank get solid aggro. At the last 15%: Things tend to get hectic as you're tanking the demon. Make sure you do NOT get Mending, Lifebloom final tics, or Earth Shield at this stage. Leotheras resets aggro after each WW, and you can very easily get aggro on him if those things proc on the wrong time. Tanking both Leotheras and his demon at the same time is not advisable, unless you're Chuck Norris. Apply a CoD and dots on the demon. If you die and get ressed/use SS, you can easily get him back that way. You won't have buffs, but you won't have debuffs either, buying your raid extra time. And obviously, use searing totem. It's godly in this fight. Alternate strategy: If you have two warlocks with high FR, you can have a spare tank, which tends to make the fight less random. You can also do a "hand off" mid demon phase, allowing the debuffs to be spread between both tanks. This will make healing the demon damage a breeze. It requires two very aware warlocks and really good communication, though. And a warlock able to kill a demon even in FR gear (affliction locks in gimped gear might have issues). All of these are just guidelines, of course. There are plenty of ways to do Leotheras and win. Last edited by Arelenda : 01/18/08 at 1:13 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1042 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Lianya |
Thanks so much for taking the time to write that. It's an awesome post and I will share it with my guild. It makes things a lot easier to understand the mechanics of the fight from a Warlocks perspective.
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| #1043 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | genobi |
Just a couple of observations on the leo fight. When our guild first began learning the fight i also specced demo (felguard) to help learn it. After a number of kills some of the things i noticed are: My healers actually had an easier time focusing on me and *just* me. Meaning that when i was specced destruction or affliction the healers said they had an easier time healing me since they could focus more on myself and not worry about a pet. The badge fr gear is loaded with stam and honestly i would forego trying to keep hit cap or anything for the fight and just put on pvp gear for more stam. If you do the fight in this manner then you can place yourself as the mt imp person and then a warrior in that party can also give you commanding shout which really boosts up your hp quick in combination with heavy stam gear and bloodpact.
Snap threat is pretty easy as mentioned if you can remind yourself to cod at the proper time. If not it will definitely be ok since searing pain does the job and without salv on you noone will catch you threat-wise even if your hit/crit rating is in the tubes from the fr gear. A paladin healing you is fantastic for two reasons; first, they can use blessing of light to up the heal average on you from them, and secondly (i did not see this mentioned previously and obviously i am blind since i notice now it was mentioned 3 posts up =( ) they can di you to remove the chaos blast debuff. If your group pushes into leo's monologue too quickly and your debuff stack is too high make sure you have a paladin ss'ed and they di you then pop back up for the last bit. You will need to remove it quickly and get ready to pick up the demon but i think it is far smoother than dying and losing all of your buffs. I cannot stress enough the use of searing totems in this fight(as mentioned by Arelenda). Every shaman, every spec, needs to be dropping them in the WW phases. Searing totems save lives! The only other thing to tell your group is make sure to watch the ww timer and not throw a big nuke right at the end of it, if people can stay calm its a pretty smooth fight once you work out the details. Last edited by genobi : 01/18/08 at 6:10 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1044 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Make sure you know how many chrages you take before you can get 2-shot with unlucky resists (if I remember correctly for non-SL dmg 100-200 (take max of 200) + 1650*charges). Once you're 1 charge below the "possible 2-shot" level have ALL healers (possibly except one if inner demon people still need healing alhtough by that point they often don't, and obviously exluding healers still killing their demons) cast-cancel big heals on the warlock. The chaos blast is very fast and at that point taking 2 in a row without a heal in between will get you killed. Keeping lifebloom up can guarantee some buffer at that point, however 1 charge higher and it's just not enough. If you keep getting a bit unlucky, you will get closer and closer to the "1-shot" point. Make sure no priest shields you at any point, as when you get to the point where the next hit will 1-shot you you will want that PWS to be available and should usually prevent that 1-shot (although you should verify calculating with your HP that a shield is enough). If that 1 hit as well before the phase ended, use a fire pot (and battlemaster trinket if the fire pot will not make you survive it for sure) to be able to survive 1 more hit. If you take another hit after that, well, SS/BR, nothing you could've done (except DI which has the same effect as just SSing/BRing the warlock assuming people know to buff him back up).
Make sure your warlock has as much HP as possible. Imp buff, commanding shout and full raid buffs (food at least and flask if your guild is willing to invest in easier learning of the fight). More HP will mean more debuffs before you get 1-shot, which reduces the chance you will actually get to that point within a demon phase. SL spec gives an incerdible HP buffer for the "1-shot" factor however once the fight is on farm (heck, we learned the fight with aff lock tanking, was messy but we did it) you probably won't have that. Make sure your warlock has maxed FR (preferably using aura so you can get more HP and MD felhunter if specced, again for even more HP)! This will greatly reduce the chance for the debuff to actually stack high enough, although healers should be aware that although you avoid 75% of the attacks, you can still take 2 in a row and the attack speed seems to be 2 seconds, maybe even a bit faster than that, which is faster than most big heals, so once the debuff is stacked enough you need multiple healers spam-canceling big heals (or even not cancel at all if mana is not an issue and debuff is stacked high enough, as no matter how good of a healer you are, the warlock has more chance to survive if they don't cast-cancel, as even optimal human reaction time leaves a long time (generally well over 0.2s) after you decide to cancel the heal until you actually cancel, which is a timeframe in which the lock can get hit. When the debuff is high, play it safe and burn mana (if you can afford it, which you usually can as this is otherwise NOT a healing intensive fight at all). | ||||||||||||
| #1045 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | clavarnway |
Nightmare Seed and the pvp click-heal trinket both help if you get within 1 shot range on the blasts.
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| #1046 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Spline |
For the last 15% of Leo, I've become fond of chain sacrificing Voidwalkers for the 5000 hp improved bubble. Once, I've seen 4 stacks of Chaos Blast fall off this way.
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| #1047 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
Stacks can fall off at any time if you resist enough spells in a row. I don't see how the bubble helps with this. They just absorb damage as far as I know.
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| #1048 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
Yep if you get really lucky you can have debuffs fall off due to a lot of resists in a row. This is however pretty rare as they have quite a decently long duration that gets refreshed with every hit.
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| #1049 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Spline |
Try it! See how many chaos blast stacks you gain while bubbled. So far, I haven't gained any! Well, I did gain a stack when he one-shotted my bubble...
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| #1050 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Yellowss |
Hey fellow warlocks!
I am a pretty dedicated pve player and I need your help in connection to a main-character shift, which I am considering. My plan is simply in words, but complicated in practice. I want to lvl my warlock alt to 70 and gear him as fast and easy as possible, so I can continue raiding on him. The spec and gear that I am considering is THIS. This demands a hell lot of materials, but those should be quite easy to get. Second the gear needs 25+41+25=91 badges and revered whit shatar. (plus max lvl enchanting/tailoring) Note: First I am aware that several pvp weapons are better, but honor/arenapoints demands quite a lot work too. Second the gloves I have listed are just random aka I think I just have to hope for lucky drops in kara.(or am I wrong/do you see any better choice?) My questions to you now are:
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| #1051 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | weet |
You have aldor shoulder enchant + scryer ring.
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| #1052 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
Some quick advice.
FSW and the spellstrike set are definitely great for what you're trying to do. Gear choice is appropriate for your spec. I didn't get the point in improving Searing Pain, consider putting it in Emberstorm instead. Although this is mostly a nitpick, they're both filler talents for this build. Don't go overboard on +hit, though. It is better than +damage only on bosses, and does squat on everything else. When you're farming instances, or doing Hyjal, it is wasted on more than half the mobs. Don't sacrifice everything else for it. Don't buy the badge items straight away, do Karazhan and other farms (maybe ZA?) a few times, then buy the stuff you didn't find upgrades for. There are plenty of really good offhands in Karazhan/SSC and the one off Winterchill, for example. Do not buy that blade of wizardry, it pretty much sucks. Whether it'll be competitive: when played well, it'll do acceptable damage. Gear hardly matters in Hyjal, where it's all about SoC on trash. How high you'll be on the meter depends on your play skill and latency, other people's play skill, and their gear quality and the choices they made with it. ![]()
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| #1053 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Yellowss | |||||||||||||
| #1054 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | Phantasie |
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Get the Icon right away however, you'll use that practically forever. What raid instances do you have access to? Your gear + Hyjal ring doesn't exactly match. Voidheart gloves are kind of bad considering - No sockets is a killer for that item. If you were going for a kara level glove I would try to pick up the [Handwraps of Flowing Thought] off Attumen instead. Will get you a bit of +hit so you can swap some of those +8hit gems for the hit/dmg noble topaz. I actually used flowing thought gloves all the way up to Tier6. Also the badge gloves, [Studious Wraps] are nice as well, if you have the access to quick 60 badges Doomwalker has a nice pair if you can do that [Anger-Spark Gloves]. Basically I would avoid tier4 gloves unless you want the 2piece bonus and need to wear them until you pick up another piece Last edited by Phantasie : 01/20/08 at 7:11 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1055 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Roywyn |
We're currently tweaking our raid setup and specs in preparation of the Sunwell Plateau. Like everyone else
I'm particularly interested in Malediction, 13% CoE or CoS. In particular, about the opportunity cost of speccing Affliction instead Destruction, which is a DPS loss. I have seen people claim "Affliction does 1500 and Destruction 2100 DPS" in T6 gear content. I plugged some numbers (1.5k damage, 1% miss, 33% total crit including talents, 5% haste) into Leuliers spreadsheat, is that a sensible estimate without a shaman? With those numbers, Ruin is a bit ahead of UA, Immolate is barely worth casting, and the estimates are: 1540 for affliction, 1680 for destruction. So, what would be a decent estimate of the DPS loss from destruction vs. affliction at gear of choice? At 140 DPS difference, I can even 13% CoE make up the difference, while at 600 DPS nothing will make up the DPS difference. Increased mana/health returns can make up for it though, and you'll likely want 5/5 shadow embrace and Blood Pact when 2.4 hits anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #1056 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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I don't get the question. Is it whether to go for talented CoS or CoE? In that case, it probably depends on your raid setup, but since warlocks and shadow priests are almost exclusively shadow users, it'd have to be a strange setup for talented CoE to be worth it. Run numbers, though. WWS should provide you an overview of total Shadow+Arcane vs Fire/Frost damage done. I'll assume for the sake of the discussion that you're interested in taking a second affliction warlock for double malediction. ![]()
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Judging by the spreadsheet, the difference would be close enough to warrant a second malediction user. But as people have pointed out, the spreadsheet assumes optimal dot choice (favoring affliction), and a single target (favoring destruction). In my experience, it depends on fights and on play skill/latency more than anything else. Affliction is about keeping an eye on all your dot timers and selecting the appropriate one. Destruction is about hitting that Shadow Bolt button on exactly the right moment, over and over. They're very different play styles, and being good at one doesn't help with the other. To be honest, I doubt that a marginal raid dps increase or decrease will change the outcome of fights in Sunwell much. | ||||||||||||
| #1057 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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If blizzard fixed debuffs (by adding priority, knocking off deep wounds and Fireball's DoT), then it would help out Affliction a bit. | ||||||||||||
| #1058 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Nas |
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However, 5% less damage on the tank while learning new content is fairly huge, and could very well mean the difference between downing a boss on a night, or a week later. No amount of DPS would compensate for such utility, I feel. That being said, I agree, the debuff limit coupled with Affliction not really scaling anywhere near as well as Destruction makes it a fairly weak end-game spec for most encounters, and while I am hoping something would be done to fix that - I doubt that would happen by the time the Sunwell is released, if ever. At any rate, I believe lowering overall raid DPS by a bit to boost "raid survivability" on new content is a trade worth making. ![]()
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| #1059 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | PSGarak |
Affliction does less damage than destro at the high end of the gear curve, but not by much. It's raid-viable personal DPS, at the very least (think: combat daggers, not shadowstep). If you're concerned about min-maxing, the reason you would spec affliction is because of Shadow Embrace. Obviously, on farm content, the 5% buffer is far less useful, but on progression content it's well worth the dps loss, and at least the last three bosses of Sunwell will be progression content upon release.
As far as malediction... it depends on your raid content. In general, it balances out the lower ISB uptime from the lower crit rate. Your personal mileage may vary. It's usually not worth specing into specifically. However, the best spec that includes shadow embrace is most likely 41/0/20 or 40/0/21, so they basically come together despite being kinda far away in the tree. | ||||||||||||
| #1060 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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40/0/21 is the way to go if you want 5% less damage, because Ruin does scale pretty well. I think I will bite the bullet and do that build when Sunwell comes out, tank dieing less = progression. | ||||||||||||
| #1061 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Triper |
Hey! It's Triper again, and I have a WWS from our Gruul kill. See if there is any way I can work with my warlocks
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| #1062 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Zether |
So let me get this straight just to be exact.
Once I get to 25% crit chance, should I start stacking spell damage? 100% of the time I'm in a group with an elemental shaman, so I'm usually over 25% crit, but im barely there. Usually around 25.64 or something. Should I have 25% UNBUFFED? or is buffed fine? Here's a link to my armory. The World of Warcraft Armory Let me know if I'm doing anything wrong. (I know my mainhand is FAIL) | ||||||||||||
| #1063 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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But your gemming is way off. At your gear level you should be putting Veiled Noble Topazes in almost everything (4 hit, 5 damage, except for items with a good socket bonus, in which you can use 5 damage, 6 stam purples in blue slots. | ||||||||||||
| #1064 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Zether |
I already told you that I'm in a group with an elemental shaman always, so my hit cap is already achieved by being at at least 165 hit. If anything, I can lose 4 hit.
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| #1065 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ♦ frmorrison |
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The spreadsheet says 1 damage and 0.6 for 1 crit rating for your gear, so stacking damage is the way to go for sustained dps for a long while (even at full Tier 6 1 damage is better than 1 crit, but not by much). Of course don't use Immolate. | ||||||||||||
| #1066 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
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I'd check their specs and gear first of all, and point them to guides. Make them understand that their purpose in a raid is doing as much damage as possible, and that it actually matters that they're not doing well. When we did Gruul, our warlocks were able to top the dps meters. Update: Oh, I see you're not running a shadow priest. Try and get one or two, they're incredible. Especially at that stage, their damage is very good and the mana/health returns are absurd. Not to mention misery and shadow weaving. | ||||||||||||
| #1067 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Triper |
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| #1068 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Talosh |
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The rings are quite cheap in our dks system (using an inverse one: itempoints / runpoints = dkp value, the one with the smallest one gets the loot, itemcost per slot between 1 and 7 points, ring costs 2). For sure I'll take the Hyjal ring when I get the fraction up to exalted, but one may still dream for two rings. | ||||||||||||
| #1069 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Talosh |
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| #1070 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #1071 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
I thought DI was a complete aggro wipe, unlike BoP/divine shield. That's why you can use the former for wipe prevention, but not the latter. If you get to the point where you need a DI, might as well battleres/soulstone (unless they were all used already), and do quick buffs when he comes back up (he won't need the max HP buffs until the debuff stacks up again anyway). Of course it'll take him a bit to overtake healing aggro if it's the last 15% but it's doable. If he dies during a regular demon phase he has no chance to regain aggro but if your raid survives through it he'll be up and ready to tank the next demon phases.
Of course if you run sl/sl with 13k HP you're very likely to never need SS/BR if your healers play properly and if you wait for the debuffs to wear off before you take leo to 15%. Heck even affliction or destro with 13k HP takes a rather large amount of bad luck to get 1shot, however it's much more likely to happen at least once at some point in the fight (yet it's still doable with a ss/br as it'll mostly happen at the end of the demon phase so it won't really matter as if he goes loose at that point he won't have time to kill anyone and the warlock will be back up and ready to tank by the next phase). | ||||||||||||
| #1072 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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| #1073 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | galzohar |
With max FR (without SL ) and 13k HP you have a decent chance to reach oneshot range once a fight. This in no way means you're going to have a good chance to wipe, though, as when you do get oneshot the demon phase will be almost over and you can SS up and/or get BRed. No real reason to use SS/BR before the warlock actually dies, though, as even if you enter the 15% phase with debuffs on you (which shouldn't be happening! get him back to human phase and lose the debuffs before you dps him down below 16%) there's a chance they'll just wear off, and if they don't and you end up getting 1shot SS up and get aggro back - if all your healers are salved up it's actually far from impossible to get it back.
I would only consider DI if all SSs/BRs were already used up and there are enough healers alive to finish the fight a pally short. | ||||||||||||
| #1074 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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DI simply avoids this worst case scenario from occurring. I believe you can DI and drop it without losing threat, but I can not be quoted on this. Doing it during his speech is just simple and fairly pain free. | ||||||||||||
| #1075 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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| #1076 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Weikin |
Hello guys,
I'm rather new here and could use some advice on some upgrades. Our guild is currently raiding SSC 3/6 and ZA 6/6 and we began raiding TK 1/4 aswell. I'm still working on my hit gear but was wondering if some of the following items I will post are concidering a (major) upgrade: Cowl of the Grand Engineer - Items - World of Warcraft OR Hood of Hexing - Items - World of Warcraft to replace my Spellstrike Hood Blade of Twisted Visions - Items - World of Warcraft Haste ftw? Hex Shrunken Head - Items - World of Warcraft Dont I need the hit from the Scryer trinket? Cord of Screaming Terrors - Items - World of Warcraft to replace the belt Which should be the next upgrade for FSW ? Chest that drops off Hydross? What about my OH? I do need the hit, so I wont replace it by Orb of the Soul Eater will I ? I need some advice ^^ Armory link: http://armory.wow-europe.com/charact...grand&n=Kunlun | ||||||||||||
| #1077 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | awakened |
Okay, I know that I need 202 spell hit to hit cap for all spells. Right now I am at 130 (10.3%) with 5/5 Suppression. I've read that you don't gain anything from keeping Suppression at max once you hit cap for affliction spells. Can I move points out of Suppression now? I'm thinking I can move 2 points out of Suppression and still maintain cap for my affliction spells. Or am I wrong on this?
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| #1078 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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2. The Nath Mindblade is a good weapon and the sword isn't a huge upgrade. Alternatives are the Leotheras Sword or the Dragonhawk dagger. 3. Craft a Belt of Blasting, which will last you deep into t6 content. 4. Hydross Chest is better, but its not a huge difference. If you can kill Vashj, the Robes she drops are better than t6 and they are an endgame item. T5 chest is also an upgrade but requires Kael. 5. Hex Shruken Head is better than the Bloodgem regardless of whether you need the hit or not. The same is true for Orb of the Soul Eater (though I would take the Primal Gods OH) over the Netherspite one. If you could get the cloak off Prince, that would be a solid upgrade as well. ![]()
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| #1079 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Trickykid |
If you read up the page a bit, you'd know you could use the spreadsheet linked on the first page to tell you relative values for different stats.
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| #1080 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Weikin |
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Thank you for your response About #2. How well is haste to see any diffference in dps? If I would take the sword from Zul'Jin and the Primal Gods OH. Would I see any difference at all? #3: Nobody on Horde side who can craft it yet (1y old server and slow progress) #4 Hydross, got it wont down Vashj or KT soon ... #5 Knowing 202 is the spell hit cap, what should be the absolute minimum for when i win Hex Shrunken Head for example and take Primal Gods OH ( 2 spell hit items that I 'll replace? :<) | ||||||||||||
| #1081 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | ravenlust |
I've got an issue that i'd gladly take some advice on. Please dont give me the "Dps Less" either -_-.
Im a Shadowbolt Turret, through and through. Destro lock with T5 and BT/Mh gear. I'm sitting at: 1347 Shadow Damage with Fel armor (no succy sac or shadow and flame) 193 (15.3%) hit 22.99% crit Its nothing great, but it works. Compared to other casters my gear is equal if not slightly lower in comparison. I've always been able to manage my threat fairly well (mainly via resists lolz) However, i recently picked up the [Blind seers Icon] and the +24 hit off that gave me that little edge i needed to somehow give me problems. I normally wait till about 70-100K threat (totally fight dependent, but lets say a normal tank and spank) to soulshatter. But its getting to the point now where im having to pause 6-10 secs every bolt or dot like an affliction lock for the first 30K of the fight. I then slowly open up and get a string of 7-8K shadowbolts and immediately end up on the tanks butt with aggro. With all the multiple tank swap fights in BT this has gotten very annoying. It used to be that i was #1 on dmg by 100K. Now i'm #3-6 because i have to sit down and play poker in between spells so i dont rip aggro. I'm about to regem for +dmg and reduce my crit. I dont want to, but i feel it may be my only option. ISP is my only friend :*( Any suggestions? I've been crunching numbers and still no answers. | ||||||||||||
| #1082 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Krazen |
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That said, in your situation, I'd estimate ratios to be about the following: 1 hit = 1.3 damage. 1 haste = .8 damage 1 crit = .9 damage The reason people suggest capping hit is because hit offers superior returns per point than the other stats do. That said, you need to still consider items in context of what you can replace them with. The Scryer's Bloodgem, for example, has 32 hit, which you can consider to be the equivalent of about 42 damage for this discussion. The Hex Shrunken Head has 53 damage on it (not to mention a superior on use). Thus, you don't need a 'minimum' number of hit to swap out the Bloodgem; the Hex Head will ALWAYS be better. You can do a similar analysis on the Netherspite offhand against the Fetish of the Primal Gods. | ||||||||||||
| #1083 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Arelenda |
If you're threat capped, don't use affliction dots as Destro, they're more threat than destruction spells.
I use immolate and Life tap if I'm close to the threat max and don't want to Soulshatter just yet. That's about all I can do, though. ![]()
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| #1084 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Xus |
I wonder if the build below would work in BT/hyjal. i know that most locks in T6 content are DS/SnF spec due to the horrible scaling of afflic tree. but since i dont wanna go stick to that single button spam spec til blizz can be bothered to fix it. So i wanna try this one out.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft yup, i plan to use succubus as a source of dps as well, i tried felguard raiding before as well and most fights in BT/Hyjal are either impossible for pets(Archimonde, Naj'entus etc) , or just very easy. With the exception of illidari council where luck decides everything. I wonder how much dps can a succubus of afflic lock do with the imp.LoP talent ? i dont expect it to be high but i think that surely is better than just having an imp out there waiting to be dark pacted. Although with this build it's perfectly possible to use imp as well in those totally impossible fight for pets. would like some comments plz | ||||||||||||
| #1085 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Weikin |
Would rather put 2 points from impr LoP into Destructive Reach.
And this is a common 41-0-20 build, nothing special at all. | ||||||||||||
| #1086 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran | |||||||||||||
| #1087 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | rochan |
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Only other thing I can say is that your tank needs to get more threat. | ||||||||||||
| #1088 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | tdog |
I'm sure this has been covered but sifting through 44 pages and all the other posts seems silly when the question I would think is simple for a few of the experts on here to answer.
I have been running as an UA lock for some time and collecting the gear necessary to switch to the 0/21/40 build. With my current gear collection I can easily exceed 202 hit rating. Realistically I can reach 250 with gear choices. Question is at what point do I stop worrying about crit and spend the time getting gems to focus on spell damage? I can hit 20% crit with gear with no trouble and that doesn't include the 5% of crit from Devastation. So basically is there a point where I should leave crit alone and focuse on increasing my spell damage? I sit around 1100-1200 unbuffed in shadow damage. I do have the full shadoweave set but am wondering if it's time to let it go or since the Shadow damage is so good should i change the gems to crit and continue to use them? I do have Boots of Blasting and Illidari Shoulderpads to replace 2 of the shadoweave sets and was thinking I would pick up Robe of Hateful Echoes off Hydross if it drops to replace the 3rd pc. Thanks in advance If you look me up on armory I am in my pvp gear (obviously) and pvp spec. | ||||||||||||
| #1089 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Stran |
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The spreadsheet will calculate the value of damage, crit, hit, +shadow and haste for you. A lot of people like you have this misconception that you max hit first then you need 25% crit then this then that. None of that is exactly true. The ONLY truth is this. Hit, until caped, is worth the most in terms of DPS gained. Damage is second. Then things get blurry depending on your gear level. However, choosing between an item with 20 hit and 40 damage and an item with 80 damage is not really hard. 80 damage wins by far. So you never focus or one or the other. Damage is almost always (if not always) better than crit. And hit is always better than damage until you are caped. But items do not come tailor made. Also keep in mind that an item with +crit, +hit and +damage is better itemized than one with just +damage, as it makes better use of the item level. This is due to the fact that the cost of next stat is more than the previous point of the same stat. So, 40 str 40 int item would be lower ilevel than 80 sta or 80 str item. Bottom line, get the spreadsheet, it's an invaluable tool. | ||||||||||||
| #1090 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 Edited onPatch 2.3.2 | ravenlust |
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Yea, im at the point of finding some nub guild and getting an AQ40 run for a fetish of the sand reaver. lolz It's more or less the huge jumps in threat due to the massive numbers that i put up. A constant stream like a fire mage for example, would be easy to maintain the 130%. But i need to keep ~90% since at any given time ive got 2 bolts in the air, and will buffs/consumables i can pop 2 9K shadowbolts and become the new main tank. I may not have it long enough to pull, but i may have it long enough to screw the tank out of the immunity from an ability. Last edited by ravenlust : 01/21/08 at 6:22 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1091 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Gofa |
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Hm try to use soulshatter as late as possible, talk to your tanks so that they will try to put more TPS, use MD multiple times and tell your healers to give your tank more healing aggro (PoM i.e.). Other than that.. if you get a shamy, tell him to drop a tranquil air totem. Threat really shouldn't be an issue. If your tank will do ~1000tps (should be possible for a bt tank on a bossfight) you will need 1300tps to over-aggro. Taking salvation + 10% less aggro (because of talents) into account... we will have your TPS = Damage x 0.63 In order to gain aggro, you will need 1300 tps 1300 = D x 0.63 D = 2063.49.... So if you have a 1000tps tank, you will have to do more than 2000dps to pull aggro (assuming salvation) and you still have soulshatter. Maybe your tank is doing something wrong, but there really shouldn't be an issue with aggro. | ||||||||||||
| #1092 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | Gumibear |
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| #1093 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.2 | PSGarak |
Since it seems to come up about every three pages on average, let me explain an important thing about gear scaling.
Hokay, so, let's say you have 15% crit and 1500 shadow damage, which is unreasonably low crit for that damage level. People will often ask, what crit should I shoot for before working on damage again? The answer is the amount of crit until the dmg:crit ratio is about 1:1 again in the spreadsheet that we tell everyone to look at. HOWEVER, there is an important thing here that most people don't seem to realize. How much damage should you now stack before going back to crit? About one. Yes, one spell damage. Then crit becomes favorable again and you should go back to stacking crit rating. For one whole crit rating. And so on. Every so often you will want two instead of one, but the point stands. You have not reached the point where crit is less good than damage, you have reached the point where it is as good as damage, and you now focus on both, not on one. In short: If you're asking about threshold values for your gear, you're doing it wrong. Unlike hit rating, there is no point where crit magically goes from awesome to useless. The idea of "build to 25% crit and then do damage" is wrong, and not just because of the number 25 (which is too high anyways). The idea is actually "your gear favors damage to crit at 1:0.75, so you should look for gear that prefers damage over crit, regardless of what absolute values you're looking at." | ||||||||||||
| #1094 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Jaeydn |
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| #1095 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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To give you some numbers, this is the highest DPS I have ever done on a single target fight, and I finished at about 98% of tank threat or so (after shattering), so I still had a way to go. There are plenty of other WWSes of locks doing more damage than me as well. | ||||||||||||
| #1096 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
I just moved from 0/21/40 to 0/40/21 mainly to compensate for Tank aggro. Plus, my party-mates like having a 3/3 Imp in the group a lot, and I enjoy threat reduction and more Shadow Damage than I had before.
My DPS time is way low otherwise, because I end up sitting around waiting for room for a Shadow Bolt or Immolate. | ||||||||||||
| #1097 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
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In addition, you can use lower ranks of shadow bolt so you don't get too much threat at the start (I use rank 8 for that). | ||||||||||||
| #1098 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
From the 'fake' patch notes posted on worldofraids boards.. (Worldofraids forums :: 2.4 on EU PTR)
- Incinerate: The cast time has been increased to 3 sec, from 2.5 sec. - Bane: This talent now also reduces the cast time of Incinerate, but no longer reduces the cast time of Soulfire. Assuming that this change was made, what kind of effect would it have upon fire vs shadow scaling? I do not know how to test this properly myself, but thought it was worth bringing up.. seeing as such a change is probably likely at some point in the future (in my opinion). Given that currently the difference as quoted from page 1 of this thread is "Incinerate and Shadowbolt gain the same from spell damage in a standard raid environnment, the only differences are ISB vs better mana efficiency (and ISB > mana efficiency). Base coefficients : SB : 85.6% Inci : 71.4% In a desctruction build, both SB and Inci gain +20% from S&F, fire gets x110% from emberstorm. And in a standard raid environnment, SB gets x110% from shadow weaving, inci gets x115% from improved scorch. SB : (85.6+20)*1.10 = 116,16 Inci : (71.4+20)*1.15*1.10 = 115.62" With a same base coefficient from casting time, incinerate would go up to 133.58 which seems quite substancial. as well as added gained mana efficiency. Obviously a huge factor is improved shadowbolt, but there from first thoughts I would guess that assuming you already have say 1 40/0/21 lock, and another 0/21/40 shadow lock keeping Imp.SB up a decent amount of the time for themselves and the shadow priests, a fire lock would see good results which would be a net benefit overall. Luckily for us, the only talent needed to be dropped from a traditional shadowbolt turret build would be Cataclysm allowing one to adapt to the current raid makeup easily regardless. | ||||||||||||
| #1099 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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As far as the mainhand, the sword is nice but I consider the Dragonhawk dagger/Leo sword to be better - and theres always the S2 mainhand (225 damage and nice +hit, pretty easy to get). For the offhand, I'm assuming you're using the Kara one with damage/hit - I would say go with the Orb of the Soul Eater. Its just so much more damage. Yes, you should prioritize hit - but only to a certain degree, you shouldn't be completely gimping your spell damage (especially if you are affliction where you have suppression to help you out). As far as FSW, T5 robe would be nice since apparently you are in desperate need of hit. I couldn't see your armory for your spec/gear, so this is all just based off of what you said in your post. This is just general advice, the truth is you need to use the spreadsheet and evaluate each gear/gemming/enchanting choice in regards to your own current stats/spec. Last edited by Ammanas : 01/22/08 at 8:59 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1100 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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| #1101 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | witchedwiz |
a little question..
at the moment as destro shadow i'm sitting at 1340ish (incl flask+wizard oil.. excluded shammy ofc i never get one :P), 29,60% crit (incl deva), 202 spell hit... i'm still using spellstrike hood.. currently i get to choose between t5 helm, hood of hexing and cowl of high engineer... granted that i don't have the time to raid za after lunch, what should i go after (unless i'm lucky and get in a late night ZA), cowl of the high engineer or t5 helm? | ||||||||||||
| #1102 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | moghed |
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| #1103 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | fip |
If you are under 2 pieces of t5 I would grab the t5 helm just because the 2 piece has random rare utilities. Otherwise just grab the VW helm.
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| #1104 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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I believe Prince is the only encounter where you need to stay below 100%, and only for the first 2 phases. After that, you're free to burn to the 129% mark. | ||||||||||||
| #1105 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shadorn |
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| #1106 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sardaukar |
Archimonde's air burst is the same as Prince I believe.
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| #1107 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
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Total result: Personal and Raid DPS loss unless you have fire mages and no shadow priests, and all your warlocks do it at once, maybe (depending on immo and base damage). Adding in the conflag change, fire-destro becomes a PvP-dps spec. Which does not necessarily mean a PvP-viable spec. Putting incinerate on bane is necessary imo, but probably not sufficient in any capacity without more fire-specific changes (unless maybe it stays 2.5s casting time, 2.0s with bane). And I'm personally convinced the patch notes are fake, although they're getting better at it. | ||||||||||||
| #1108 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
Yes, patch notes look fake.
If it were true, I think fire would become viable in raids. Higher base damage, lower mana cost, 10% bonus from emberstorm vs ISB, and 15% imp scorch vs 10% shadow weaving. It would be a lot closer and depending on raid setup. I'm not sure how Incinerate works with other people's immolates, though It would probably still be inferior under most raiding circumstances. But it wouldn't be the complete joke it is now. Also, it's way prettier. ![]()
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| #1109 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
It works with any immolate up on the target (unlike conflag).
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| #1110 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shaby |
Hello all.
I've been browsing these forums a lot lately and have gathered some very useful information. I play an affliction warlock and will probably continue to do so since spamming SB's gets boring really fast for me. We've managed to clear all current content and still I have this question popping up. Viability of immolate was always questionable. I usually use CoS -> UA-> Corr ->siphon life -> immolate (only on encounters which require a lot of moving; Archimonde) after I've applied all my debufs I start casting SB's. And from here on I reaply my debufs and spam SB's when I can. I was wondering would it pay off to switch Immolate for Siphon life? Is there anything wrong with my DPS cycle (I personally am not satisfied with my own output)? Thanks for all the comments. | ||||||||||||
| #1111 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silaine |
I got my second piece of tier 5 yesterday and specced demo immediately. I still don't have VST, but I'm keen to try out demo anyway.
The World of Warcraft Armory I am not sure if I should spec instant corruption and leave the destructive reach and 2% crit from devastate. Or if I should leave points out of demonic resilience for mana feed and put the extra points into devastate. Any advice? PS We are starting MH tonight. | ||||||||||||
| #1112 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1113 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Stran |
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| #1114 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lianya |
Leo tanking.
I just wanted to say thanks for all the information around tanking Leo, from spec ideas to the actually timing of spells during the fight. Our guild got him on the 2nd try (got the enrage on the first attempt), and using CoD for threat, etc, was magic. This board is really a tremendous source of info, and I just wanted to say thank you to you guys for taking the time to help. | ||||||||||||
| #1115 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gremmik |
Gear for Leo
I was wondering if anyone could post a link for the gear they used to get the 225 FR. I have searched a little on the net and on youtube and haven't been able to find a defined list.
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| #1116 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bogeywoman | |||||||||||||
| #1117 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lianya |
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The other item I would use to get over the cap, is the FR ring you get from the Trial's quests that culminate by killing Mag. (I will have that item this week). So you would only need to swap out a total of 5 items using that ring, or 4 if you apply the +8 FR patches to the items. I can provide specific links to the Ring if needed. | ||||||||||||
| #1118 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1119 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silverstorm |
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FR Neck from the The Cipher of Damnation - Quests - World of Warcraft quest line. This chain also unlocks the Trials quests. That will get you to 224 FR. The difference between 364 and 365 FR shouldn't be significant enough to matter. | ||||||||||||
| #1120 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sardaukar |
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| #1121 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vinniepaz |
Resistances..
Can someone point me to a guide or information that tells me what resistances I should have for the various dungeons.
So far nothing I have run actually needs any res. (Kara, Gruul, just started SSC/TK). I'd like to be proactive and get it all together rather than reactive and die X runs before I get what I need. Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #1122 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Mother Shahraz requires Shadow res (9th? boss in BT) for the entire raid. Greenies will do. | ||||||||||||
| #1123 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Zaq |
You'll need a capped Fr set for Leo if you're tanking that (365 Buffed), the badge peices are wonderful for this, but a mix of greens probably works. You'll want a partial fr set for kael. And a full shadow set for BT (Much of which can be crafted once you're in t6).
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| #1124 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Saraa |
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You may enjoy the benefits of Prism of Inner Calm of off Vashj. Sorry that I am unable to make a live link, but it reduces threat from your crits. I am also curious what the community thinks of this item. I won one in a random roll because no one wanted to spend DKP on it. I did a forum search but did not find anything. My gear is not good enough to warrant equipping it at this point, but I think it may be useful down the road. I have also heard rumors that the item may be looked at for a buff. | ||||||||||||
| #1125 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vlar |
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What do you think about the idea of adding to ISB to include fire damage and making Incinerate proc it as well? Would it be too powerful with emberstorm? | ||||||||||||
| #1126 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
They'd need to re-fit Mages in response to that. Given that just changing the coefficient on Incinerate pushes it at the level of (or beyond) Shadow... adding another 10-15% damage on top of that isn't likely.
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| #1127 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | calisti |
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Head: [Collar of Cho'gall] (Glyph of Power: +22 spell damage / +14 spell hit) Amulet: [Amulet of the Torn-heart] Shoulders: [Mantle of the Corruptor] (Greater Orb of Inscription: +12 spell damage / +15 spell crit) Chest: [Infernoweave Robe] (+150 hp) Back: [Wyrmcultist's Cloak] (Greater Fire Resist: +15 FR) Wrists: [Fury of the Ursine] (Spellpower: +15 spell damage) Gloves: [Infernoweave Gloves] (Spellpower: +20 Spell damage) Belt: [Nethershard Girdle] Pants: [Infernoweave Leggings] Boots: [Infernoweave Boots] (Fortitude: +12 Stamina) Ring 1:[Phoenix-fire Band] Ring 2: [Ashyen's Gift] Trinket 1: [Commander's Badge] Trinket 2: [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] Weapon: [Staff of Infinite Mysteries] (Greater Spellpower: +40 spell damage) Alternate item in case you're missing one of the other fire resist pieces: Wrists: [Flameheart Bracers] Last edited by calisti : 01/23/08 at 7:58 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1128 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shadorn |
I've never had a problem tanking Capernian (Kael encounter) with 0 FR, spam heals in phase 1 (get a pally aura if you're struggling) and the mace buff for phase 3 make FR a wasted stat.
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| #1129 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
Yeah I used to tank Leo for awhile in the beginning of our SSC days. But towards the end we just threw a feral druid on it in full FR gear and I just dps'd. It seemed easier on the healers for some reason.
Kael'thas, never wear FR you are right, healers should be fine on phase 1 and then in phase 3 it should take 2 healers max to keep you up. | ||||||||||||
| #1130 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | nathanrahl |
If ISB affected Incinerate you'd have to loose out on alot of things to get it with a traditional 0/21/40 build so no the dmg difference wouldnt be staggering... i'd assume it would be a choice based on your crit % and loosing imp immolate or semothing to trade for it
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| #1131 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | legionaus |
Question about dot rotation.
i am not sure if this has been asked before but i wanted to know what spell rotation locks use? Affliction 41/0/20 UA > Corruption > siphon Life > Agony > spam SB > reapply as they fall off, and SB when not dotting. when i was affliction that would be my rotation. i wasn't sure if anyone had done any theorycrafting for the highest dps dot rotation? Destro build 0/21/40 COD > corruption > immolate > Spam shadow bold and reapply cod when it falls off. | ||||||||||||
| #1132 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
Optimal Aff Lock Rotation I found was.
(curse) UA -> Corr -> Immo -> SL, then SB filler Optimal Dest (0/21/40) Rotation is. (curse) SB, refresh curse when neeeded, LT when needed. Use the spreadsheet you find for Dest, casting anything other than curse+sb turns into less dps. Last edited by Nicarras : 01/24/08 at 12:54 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1133 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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| #1134 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Talosh |
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Since I am doing a bit of PvP too and am too greedy to respec I have 6/44/11. Sure it results in less DPS, but the main aspect is to learn to keep your felguard alive. You'll notice later on, that some encounters are not playable as a Demo (e.g. Najentus and Kaz'rogal), but demo is much more fun than the simple SB-spam. | ||||||||||||
| #1135 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Eternal One |
Greetings my fellow warlocks.
Please advice - what kind of gear upgrades should I consider for my character? Currently Our guild is farming SSC/TK. Also, I'm at the point quite satisfied with my damage output (top 1-2 dps is enough for me . Will item upgrades from SSC/TK be worth the time and dkp spent farming them? Difference seems negligible. The World of Warcraft Armory My thoughts: [Boots of the Shifting Nightmare] [Mantle of the Corruptor] [Robe of Hateful Echoes] (probably not going to get Robe from Vashj, should I wait for T5 or get this one?) [Nathrezim Mindblade] and [Orb of the Soul-Eater] Should I consider T5 helm or [Cowl of the Grand Engineer]. Or there's almost no difference? Should I even consider them if I have a [Spellstrike Hood]? | ||||||||||||
| #1136 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
Re Demonology in MH: If a guild is truly serious about progression in T6 content, I don't see how a demo warlock would have a place. You want one affliction warlock and the rest specced for max dps, i.e. DS/S&F. Demo is also a problem when learning the "hardest" encounters on MH/BT - where you don't need the distraction of keeping a pet alive/resummon etc.
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| #1137 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Talosh |
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And especially fights like Archimonde and Illidan are absolutely no dps race. The main aspect is to stay alive and you can absorb more damage with soul link, your pet needs no healing because of the T5 bonus. For encounters like Bloodboil you have the advantage to burst more dps with the felguard because you produce less aggro. But in general you are right, with destro my dps is higher, but since we have both instances on farm, the pure sb-spam got a bit boring for me. | ||||||||||||
| #1138 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Crepe |
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| #1139 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
Yes, that is correct. Bears typically are more reliable, having more hp. Warlocks tanking on Leo can work, but plenty of people choose to use other classes to tank the demon.
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| #1140 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1141 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
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| #1142 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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Spreadsheet link: WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet by Leulier | ||||||||||||
| #1143 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Eternal One |
Well, basicly the Spreadsheet says:
1) don't ever stack crit 2) don't stack haste until 1500 sSPD. 3) stack hit until 16. | ||||||||||||
| #1144 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | TheSorcerer |
I'm raidleader in a guild currently progressing through MH and BT. Recently I had a discussion with our warlocks about the benefit of Malediction. We have an affliction warlock for providing imp to our tanks and debuffing bosses with Shadow Embrace. All of the other warlocks are specced to destruction (0/21/40). Currently or destrcution locks provide CoS, CoR and CoE. Our warlocks argue, that an affliction Warlock using CoA will loose too much dps if speccing Malediction and using CoS instead. However, this seemed very odd to me, so I made the numbers and want to get some feedback here if I'm correct and might missed something.
I used our latest TK raid for numbers (yes, alot of stuff went wrongt that night). Our affliction lock (Psyckoo) gets about 200 dps from using a specced CoA. One of our destruction locks used CoD a few times and got about 160 dps from it (roughly 10k hits). That's mere 40 dps difference, thus a from Malediction improved CoS would only need to provide a 40 dps increase to have it be applied by an affliction lock instead of a destruction lock. Well, our Voidreaver kill that night had more than 4,5k shadow and arcane dps, that would sum up to more than 130 dps gain from Malediction. My conclusion: having CoS with Malediction applied by an affliction warlock instead of a destruction warlock which uses CoD for dps instead will increase raid dps. Am I right? | ||||||||||||
| #1145 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Eternal One |
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It's actually 122.85. And of course it inscreases raid dps. But the question is, if affliction lock specs destro and does 500 more dps, will it justify the difference from improved CoS, blood pact and VE? Last edited by Eternal One : 01/25/08 at 5:29 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1146 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Borodin |
I think it's still worth having a "Raid Support" Warlock with talents such Improved Imp, Malediction and of course Shadow Embrace.
They will still deliver good if not exceptional damage and the -5% Physical damage from SE is very useful in encounters like Gurtogg (Fel Rage). Of course you really only need 1 such Warlock, the rest can safely spec full on 0/21/40 or similar raid DPS builds. | ||||||||||||
| #1147 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I don't see how you guys are speccing into imp imp. 43 in affliction is a must and 17 in destro is a must as well, leaving only 1 point for it. Only talents you could drop from affliction are from the 4th tier onwards, but all talents from there on are dps talents (note I didn't even take CoEx nor imp howl, but took evertyhing else). Only thing you could MAYBE drop is nightfall or the range talent, however I don't think they're really worth 14 more stamina to your tank. Range helps stay alive and nightfall is not too bad of a dps increase. Although I suppose if you *really* want you can give up one of those and get that imp maxed.
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| #1148 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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You might as well drop Destructive Reach as well in this situation; Affliction locks don't really need the threat reduction. | ||||||||||||
| #1149 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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I don't see why 43 points in Affliction is a must for a support Warlock. At all. A Maledicted CoS and spamming Shadowbolts along with the Destruction Warlocks while keeping up Immolate and Corruption isn't exactly a slouch. Both range-extending talents. Both threat-reduction talents. Shadow Mastery, Malediction, Imp Imp 3/3, a buffed Healthstone, and Intensity. Imp Imp gives your party members nearly 900 Health. Since Affliction locks are almost guaranteed to have an Imp out at all times, putting 3 points there is a no-brainer, in my opinion. | ||||||||||||
| #1150 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Err, you lost both UA and Ruin.....that player will do the same dps as the tank. | ||||||||||||
| #1151 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | deadlights |
Okay so keeping in this line of qeustions regarding a support warlock. I'm struggling with a decision myself on whether to become said support warlock. A little backround:
Let me first say we have a warlock heavy raid. We have 5 locks with high attendence and usually at least four of us are in the raid if not all. Now, going back some months ago prior to our first Vashj kill, all our warlocks were affliction except for myself. In the interests of the raid I was specced demo to make tanking leo easier since I was the only one with a full FR set. My intention was to go back to affliction once I had the gear to support the lack of mitigation and our raid had the gear to make the enrage a non issue, but then I noticed that we were reaching the debuff limit and pushing eachother's DoT's off. I made the decision then to spec destruction rather than add to the issue with the debuff limit and in the process increase ISB up time. Fast forward to today. Now all the hardcore "I'll never leave affliction locks" saw the dmg that destro could output and all wanted to switch (they initially didn't think affliction could be beaten for dps) which they have. All except one who remains affliction but will not pick up malediction or shadow embrace. The question is this: Is it worth it for me to respec back to affliction and become the utility lock since no one else seems to want to, even though I am currently the top dpsing lock and quite often the top DPS for the entire raid? | ||||||||||||
| #1152 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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I don't know how other people's experience is about this, but switching from my paladin back to my mage I notice a huge increase in time when I can actually do stuff due to the extra range (as the paladin needs to be in range of the tank rather than the boss which is often closer to the boss than I'm used to being on my mage). At the end the extra range greatly increases your dps time in just about any fight that has any kind of movement, and will result in a noticeable dps increase. So it's pretty much a question of nightfall vs 14 more stam on your tank - worth it? | ||||||||||||
| #1153 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1154 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Having SE and Malediction is not _required_. Once you're passed Kael'thas raw dps hardly matters, really. You can easily stay your spec and it'll hardly matter on outcome of the fights. But to be honest, I'd have serious issues with a warlock that doesn't pick up malediction and shadow embrace despite being affliction, given the fact you have five warlocks in the raid. | ||||||||||||
| #1155 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Let's not exaggerate, keep comments constructive. If a warlock needs Ruin or Unstable affliction to outdps a tank, I think the problem exists between keyboard and chair. | ||||||||||||
| #1156 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | deadlights |
Yeah maybe I'll drop a bug in the affy lock's ear but the subject has been brought up before so I'm not optimistic. If it won't improve much overall I might as well stick destro though especially now that I can see the tier 6 four piece bonuses looming on the horizon.
As far as picking up Ruin I thought most math has shown that it wasn't possible for a deep affliction build with ruin to out perform UA with gear currently available. | ||||||||||||
| #1157 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
The best spec I could come up with for the utility minded Affliction lock. Though all our locks are Destruction at the moment, we will probably have one go Affliction for Sunwell. I'd have to do some math considering the gear to see if stretching over to get Ruin instead of UA (at the cost of 2points in Contagion and 1point Imp Imp perhaps) would be worth it. | ||||||||||||
| #1158 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
If you decide to drop UA, you'll find Contagion is remarkably low DPS/talent-point. Since you will be on CoS/CoE, it yields only 1% increase in the Corruptions per point. Very easy to drop, in my opinion.
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| #1159 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #1160 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I've seen people saying with their gear ruin gives mroe dps on the spreadsheet than UA, but that requires that you pretty much have the whole game on farm already, and the dps increase is small on single target and when you take any kind of multi-dotting into account you probably do less with ruin. Not to mention ruin still means you need 38 in aff and 21 in destro leaving only 2/3 for imp so you only gained 7 sta on your tank, who probably is already in full T6 if you're considering a malediction/ruin build.
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| #1161 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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2/3 imp imp is an extra 14 stamina (blood pact is 70 stamina sans talents), but the stamina isn't the reason for Affliction, it is Malediction and Shadow Embrace. | ||||||||||||
| #1162 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
A UA warlock can already put 1/3 imp imp, so 2/3 is only 7 stam more than that.
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| #1163 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison | |||||||||||||
| #1164 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
Devestation is essentially a required raiding talent, especially if you have other shadow casters in the raid, or you're killing your ISB uptime. 47/3/11 ends up being a rather odd spec, since you're sacrificing a big raid utility (ISB) for a small one (bloodpact). It's certainly not raid-optimal, although it might have uses if your imp's firebolt is in play a significant amount of the time (solo farming? PvP?).
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| #1165 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | moghed |
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I realize this is an older post but I have a question regarding CSD. I'm not extremely good with spreadsheets, so would you mind saying how you modeled this? I'm trying to compare several different gear sets with varying crit and hit and I'd like to know how to get the spreadsheet to model the bonus to crit from this gem. | ||||||||||||
| #1166 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
There was a rumor on the WoW forums (far from reliable, I know) about Devastation being bugged not working with Shadow Bolt, has anyone seen any evidence to this? I don't have any recent WWSs to look at my self.
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| #1167 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
Gumibear - WWS
http://wowwebstats.com/umj54wl6uew3u?a=3 Those are my WWS for this week's Hyjal and BT. Both nights I averaged a 28% crit rate on Shadowbolt. I'm grouped with an elemental shaman so I get Totem of Wrath, so I should expect about a 33% crit rate. This probably is not enough data on its own to make a conclusion, but if everyone is seeing a lower than expected crit rate, something could be up. Is a 5% deviation significant over full clears of Hyjal and BT? | ||||||||||||
| #1168 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shai |
I've observed lower than expected crit rates for a long time now, but I've always attributed it to bad luck with the RNG.
This is the latest WWS we have, but I'm unsure how useful it is since I was grouped with a Moonkin on some fights and he likes running in and out of aura range. My normal crit rate should be ~30%. http://wowwebstats.com/ydlimvj3rrlse Good example of the randomness of crits: On Kaz'rogal I was in full SR but had a 39% crit rate. | ||||||||||||
| #1169 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Brissa |
Since your havent beaten the game and are still making progression raids: YES, either that or threaten to kick the fucker who wont respec to help his guild.
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| #1170 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Problem is that "the fucker that will not respec to help his guild" is also "the fucker who doesn't show up" and "the fucker that can't do much more than shadowbolt spam". Unless you want all your warlocks affliction so you can be destruction, or have them respec daily based on the other warlocks' attendance, you need to be the affliction warlock if your attendance is actually consistant and you can actually not mess up your dps as affliction. Make one of them spec aff and you either get stuck on a raid he doesn't show up or his dps will just suck as he's already bad and on top you make him play a spec that's harder to play making him even worse.
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| #1171 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
Regarding possible devastation bug, perhaps the best way to determine this would be to compare shadowbolt crit percentage vs Seed of Corruption.
I only have some old wws's of my own to look at (from November) #1 Shadow Bolt (Shadow) 840 hits 29% crit Seed of Corruption (Shadow) 297 hits 24% crit #2 Sb 157 hits 28% crit Seed 553 hits 23% crit #3 sb 156 hits 31% crit seed 334 hits 27% crit Yet if you look at the WWS of the raid that Shai just linked 3 warlocks 1 has same crit rate for both spells 1 has sb crit rate 2% higher 1 has seed crit rate 1% higher And Gumibears WWS Gumibear 1% higher crit on seed Nickerbocker 1% higher crit on sbolt Alesha 2% higher crit on sbolt I looked through some others quickly but could not find a lot of reports with a high seed usage, but it did seem that sb was often 4% higher crit so shrug. So it is probably worth looking into anyway, considering if it does exist it is possible to have popped up in a recent patch. | ||||||||||||
| #1172 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | zelman |
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| #1173 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
I am aware of this hence the interesting numbers in the recent wws's linked where the crit rate is the same, as opposed to mine from a couple of months ago where the close to 5% difference is present. Why else would I be comparing the two spells?
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| #1174 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shai |
This sounds like a good approach. I'm just not certain the WWS report I linked is a good baseline for comparison. As I said, there was a Moonkin present, but from what I can tell, WWS isn't able to reliably show who had the aura at what time. You would need consistent theoretical crit rates for such a comparision.
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| #1175 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Caps |
Maximizing my DPS.
First off, Hello. I am new here... i am hoping this is the right spot to pot this =D
My name is Caps and im a 21/40 sac/destro lock I am trying to get the most damage out of my class via gear & spell rotation (lol sb spam? :P) Anyways this post may get long i apologize. The current "end game" set i am aiming for is as followed. T6 Head/Gloves/Chest/Shoulders with my off set piece being Legguards of Channeled Elements Neck: Translucent Spellthread Necklace Waist: Anetheron's Noose Back: Cloak of the Illidari Council Feet: Slippers of the Seacaller Wrist: Cuffs of Devastation Ring 1: Band of the Eternal Sage Ring 2: Ring of Captured Storms Trinket 1: Hex Shrunken Head Trinket 2: The Skull of Gul'dan Main Hand: Tempest of Chaos Off Hand: Chronicle of Dark Secrets Ranged: Wand of the Forgotten Star All of my sockets will be 12 spell damage gems with the exception of my wrists (they have a 14 spell dmg gem as i am a jewel crafter) and 2 glowing shadowsong amethyst in order to make my meta gem work. The enchants are all the basic spell damage enchants, my weapon will have soulfrost. Now according to wowequip this leaves me at 1336 16.80% spell hit 16.31% spell crit 0 haste (unbuffed) So my first question is to other locks raiding bt/hyjal with their full end game set, how does your differ from mine? Is there anything i can switch around gear wise to produce more damage? My second question is what is your take on haste rating? -- Yes i know haste is awesome and nice, but with destro locks they need that 202 hit cap, and sadly with most of the haste gear floating around it takes away hit & crit. Have any of you tried a haste set and seen a increase or decrease in dps? annnd my last question.. Spell Rotation ^.^ What are you guys doing to get the most out of the class? For me i mostly Shadow Bolt spam and Curse of Doom. Wow Web Stats Wow Web Stats those are a few of my WWS reports that i have posted. I would link my armory but i am pretty sure that would be pointless at this point since for the weekend i am sl/sl spec and kickin it in my pvp gear ^^ Anyways, any feedback would be fantastic. and sorry if this is not the place to post this =D | ||||||||||||
| #1176 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
So, given: 4p T6, CSD, and increased ISB uptime from casting more Shadowbolts, does Ruin ever surpass UA in straight up DPS? And if not, how close is it?
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| #1177 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1178 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | gargosch |
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Maybe you need to be a bit more specific with your question. Do you mean is there any gearset where Ruin is better then UA. Then the anser is easy. Yes just pick every hight crit item and you will see that Ruin do a lot more damage then UA. Or do you mean with the best gear for a UA spec and the best gear for a Affliction&Ruin spec is there a gear level where Ruin get better. This is a lot harder to say. Maybe even NP hard to slove, but ofc it's not imposible. I played Affliction&Ruin because I had destro gear and we need Shadow Embrance. If I take my stats and enter they into a spreadsheet it show me that the diffrence is realy small between Affliction&Ruin and a UA build. My gear(all Tier 5 or lower, buffed) Shadow Damage: 1383 Crit: 21.9 Hit: 14.7 Haste: 25 dps diffrence(don't including ISB debuff from extra SB): 24 Lets just switch one gear part. Take in Vestments of the Sea-Witch instead of Frozen Shadoweave Robe and the diffrence go down to 15 dps. Anyway I would call it close. | ||||||||||||
| #1179 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
I've seen the claim about Devastation being bugged a few times since TBC started, and even wasted my time tossing 1000 shadowbolts at dr. boom a few times to test it out. As far as i can tell it still works. I've had parses with a 25% crit rate despite having ~35 raid buffed, and i've seen a few with a 40% crit rate. It happens, especially with tiny sample sizes. I don't think devastation is bugged at all, and i generally don't trust those forums anyway.
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| #1180 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
Can anyone who is good at statistics figure out a standard deviation for shadowbolt crit rate so we know what's not a big deal when WWS reports a crit rate lower than our expected? I can't even remember how to start determining that, I sucked at statistics.
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| #1181 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
First forgive me if my termination is wrong, as I did not learn statistics in english
Assuming you cast a lot of shadowbolts (will refer to what's "a lot" at the end), you can say that your # of crits has a normal deviation. Summing up a lot of shadowbolts, each shadowbolt has C chance to crit. Call X=1 if it crit and X=0 if it did not, and E(X)=C. Var(X)=E(X^2)-E(X)^2=C-C^2. Casting N shadowbolts, E(average crit over N bolts)=E(X)=C (obviously, on average with 20% crit rate casting 100 shadowbolts you'd crit 20). Var(average crit over N bolts) = Var(X)/N = (C-C^2)/N The deviation would be Var^0.5. For 100 shdowbolts and 25% crit rate, [(0.25-0.25^2)/100]^0.5=~5.6%, which means you have ~63% chance to have your crit rate between 19.4% and 30.6% if you only cast 100 shadowbolts. So getting 30% crit or 20% crit if you only casted 100 shadowbolts is very possible. To reduce the deviation to 1% with 25% crit rate you need to resolve: [0.1875/N]^0.5=0.01 0.1875/N=0.0001 0.1875=0.0001N N=1875 So if you cast less than 1875 shadowbolts expect to get at least 1% deviation in your crit chance with 25% crit. Not to mention even with 1875 shadowbolts you only have ~63% chance to be within 24% to 26% crit chance and still have some chance to be a bit further than that, however you have well over 99% chance to be within 22% to 28% if you cast 1875 shadowbolts. In other words, I wouldn't call "bug" unless your results are further than 3*deviation than the average. As for the "many shadowbolts", it's because everything here is an approximation that gets better and better the more shadowbolts you cast, however it would be rather close to the accurate deviations if you cast like 80+ shadowbolts with a realistic crit chance. Cast more and it gets more and more accurate for calculating the deviation. | ||||||||||||
| #1182 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
Not only that. Unless I'm wrong about this, your crit rate is listed against level 70s. That means that you have less chance to crit against a boss.
Take a typical Hyjal log. Since seed spam will consistently be against 70s, and shadow bolt for the large part on bosses, you would expect to see a reduced crit chance. I'm 100% sure that when I wrote ShadowSeer, crit rating was indeed what you would expect it to be for Shadow Bolt and SoC. Now it is possible that a bug along the way has crept in there, but a mere quick glance at some logs would not be sufficient to convince me. If you see less than a 5% gap between SoC and SB, I can only say: it is supposed to be like that. It would be surprising if it wouldn't. I'm just arguing for caution here, and for good math. ![]()
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| #1183 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
Ah yeah I forgot about the fact that seed would be mostly vs lower level mobs, that would definately explain a common less than 5% gap.
re: People talking about their crit rage being lower than they expect (not in comparison with other spells, just lower), as Arelenda said it is pretty obvious there is some sort of crit depreciation vs higher level mobs. From my observation I expect my crit to be lower than my char sheet suggest, simply because over a long time while raiding I have seen that while I can reach my expected crit, and sometimes exceed it, overall it tends to fall slightly below the expected rate and is alot more likely to drop below than above. | ||||||||||||
| #1184 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shai |
I thought that was the case for melee due to weapon skill and defense, but not for spells. Spells have the miss/resist mechanic that can potentially lower crit rate against higher level targets, but beyond that? Was there ever official word from Blizzard concerning spell crit versus bosses?
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| #1185 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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I estimate it at taking away 3% crit (I have a 27% tooltip crit, and WWS most of the time shows 24% crit). | ||||||||||||
| #1186 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Soul |
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| #1187 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
It also just makes sense. Your crit chance is influenced by your crit rating by a % determined by level. Whether this is by target level or by your level isn't stated explicitly, but it would be fairly logical to assume it is by target level.
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| #1188 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
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If there are about two or more warlocks (or shadow preists if they're using mind blast and shadow word: death), the duration of ISB doesn't come into play because it's no longer the limiting factor. The model developed based on that assumption is common so I won't belabor the details. The point is, you have 3% less crit than the destro warlocks from talents, maybe more from gear and group setups. If you're concerned about ISB uptime you actually want to be casting less, not more, because your shadowbolts, on average, eat up more ISB procs than they consume. If you have shadow priests in your raid it's a bit more complicated. In general, if your personal crit is less than the raid-weighted-average-shadow-ISB-proc-chance-thingy-number, you want to be casting less shadowbolts if possible, and if it's higher you want to be casting more. In either case UA is one full shadowbolt per 30 seconds, excepting mana, so it's not going to make a hell of a lot of difference. But if you're going to consider ISB uptime make sure your contribution is actually in the right direction. Galzo: thanks for dregging that crap up, I intentionally forgot it as fast as I could =P. The english terms are "expectation value" "standard deviation" and "variance" ("normal" in probability usually refers specifically to a Gaussian distribution). Also, if you want, this forum supports LaTeX formatting. | ||||||||||||
| #1189 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pullo |
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I'll share the results here and I'll let you decide. Pasted below: Ok, I realize the math on Leulier's spreadsheet shows that UA is better than ruin on affliction spec and that you should be casting immolate in every spec except for destro until you get enough BT/MH drops. I've been skeptical since almost every test I've tried shows me losing dps when I add immo to my rotation. I was bored and curious and did some testing on the PTR last night. The testing sample is Dr. Boom. I used a flask, oil and spell dmg food and used Curse of Shadow for every sample below. The tests were always taking Dr. Boom from 100-0 percent, as to get a fair sample and recreate having to use life tap and siphon to regen mana. I figured this kind of sample would offset if I got a lucky string of crits or nightfall procs. This seemed to work pretty well since I crit 22-18 percent in every sample. This is using the methods Vivvid stated in a previous post here about keeping all four dots up for the maximum time, not refreshing until they've ended as to not lose dps from the last tick. 1480 Shadow Damage 1318 Fire Damage (I lose +162 fire dmg using kara neck, frozen shadoweave boots and soulfrost) 16.44 Crit Hit Capped First test Spells used: Curse of Shadows, UA, Corruption, Immolate (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up) Result: 1197.4 dps (21 crit rate on shadowbolt) Comments: I seemed to get quite a few nightfall procs on this test, but not very many when Improved Shadowbolt is up and not very many trinketed crits when ISB was up. I decide that I'm not satisfied with this test so I do it again. Second test Spells used: same as previous Result: 1219.7 dps (22 crit rate on shadowbolt) Comments: Not as many nightfall procs, but the timing of my crits seemed to be favorable. Still, I don't like casting immolate when I've just crit on a shadowbolt. I can't help but suspect I could be doing better without immolate, so I decide to try do a test without using immolate, to take advantage of my extra 162 shadow dmg and 4-piece tier 4 bonus buff to shadowbolts. Third test Spells used: Curse of Shadows, UA, Corruption, (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up) Result: 1250.5 dps (20 crit rate on shadowbolt) Comments: I find that not casting immolate gives me more opportunities to cast shadowbolt, improving ISB uptime. I didn't get very many nightfall procs and my crit rate is only 20 percent, but I still manage to significantly increase my dps -- without using immolate. I'm tempted to test this rotation again, but I'm too eager to try my next rotation. (With the thought in mind that I could probably improve my performance). Fourth test (respec required to drop UA and pick up Ruin -- yay for PTR respecs) Spells used: Curse of Shadows, Corruption, (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up) Result: 1278 dps (18 crit rate on shadowbolt) Comments: Obviously I'm a little disappointed in my crit rate (only 20 percent after seeing 22 on one of my UA/Immo samples). I got off to a really slow start, but I get a few crits on the end. Still, I've beaten my third test sample (UA/no immolate rotation) by 28 dps with a crappy bad-luck crit sample. Obviously I'm going to try this test again. Clearly Tier 6 4-piece bonus is putting ruin ahead for me. Fifth test (for @#%ts and giggles) Spells used: Curse of Shadows, Corruption, (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up) Result: 1323 dps (22 crit rate) Comments: I'm able to get a nice crit rate (22 percent) and you can see the difference. A hunter decides to land right on top of me at around 20 percent (but doesn't dps Dr. Boom during my test, thanks btw). I do my best to not be distracted (and I'm not). Dr. Boom dies with 6 seconds left on my trinket cooldown or it could have been even better. So take it for what it's worth. I did my best to try to follow what the annointed experts say that immolate is a must for affliction and UA>Ruin. But yet, both proved (at least for my playstyle and gear) to be incorrect in this scenario. Say what you will about the test sample. I realize there are fights and situations where using immo will improve my dps (Archimonde, Supremus kite phase come to mind). Also realize that we have fire mages so COE and scorch debuff will help immolate dps a bit. But also realize that there was no shadoweaving debuff on Dr. Boom either, which would increase my shadow damage even more. Misery is another factor not in this sample. So my conclusion is using immolate isn't terrible, but for many fights, not using it is better dps. In addition, with Tier 6 four-piece bonus, Ruin has shown it can be better dps than UA. One other minor reason for using Ruin over UA. UA and immo is terribad for most trash. I know, I know, who cares about trash. Unless maybe you're trying to do a ZA timed run for a bear mount. Then speed on trash is a little important. | ||||||||||||
| #1190 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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Same thing for Ruin > UA, you cast even less DoTs for easier upkeep of the other ones. It is very easy to cast shadow bolts at around 2.6 seconds each, but you have to watch the GCD closely to make sure you cast another DoT right at 1.5 seconds, which is not as easy. | ||||||||||||
| #1191 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Caps |
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bumping this cause im still lookin for some input <3 =) | ||||||||||||
| #1192 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
For what it's worth I value haste relatively highly due to the effective mp/5 I have while raiding and the fact that most fights have downtime in which to life tap.
weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger - We've got your back! Is my ideal gear set currently, not sure about hyjal ring or ring of ancient knowledge.. depends on the specific fight. | ||||||||||||
| #1193 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
Awesome. Thanks for doing this.
I'm sure that with imp scorch up and shadoweaving, any build with immolate will be better than the listed values here. But it still shows that it depends on the fight and raid setup, in my opinion. ![]()
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| #1194 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
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I'm still going to lean with conventional thought and say that crit is AS valuable as haste, no one stat more than the other. You stack too much haste then you are more a drain on healers, if you have less crit as a result you may become an ISB drain rather than a benefit also. Granted to really stack haste you need two items off Illidian, so its gonna take some work. | ||||||||||||
| #1195 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spline |
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| #1196 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
Well the gearset i linked has 3 haste items + skull, thats hardly stacking in favour of crit, it is using superior items to the alternatives - you will still be at 31-32% destruction crit with raid buffs (int/motw/kings).. not sure what you are trying to say.
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| #1197 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1198 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Botvinnik |
ISB uptime
I have been reading TONS of threads about theorycrafting/predicting ISB uptime. It seems extremely difficult to calculate ISB uptime because you have to take into account the crit/haste/spec/rotation of all the shadowpriest and warlocks in the entire raid. I think a much more practical approach would be to find out ISB uptime for one of your raids. Is there an addon that measures/explain ISB uptime for a raiding lock? If I could find out an approximate ISB percentage during raids, I could then decide if shadowpriests can get away with using mindblast or if that is eating up a valuable ISB charge, also how valuable crit is for the raid, etc. etc. I know this is fairly specific question, but I can't make threads yet as a just signed up on the website. Thanks a bunch.
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| #1199 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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| #1200 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Screenshot at http://wowui.incgamers.com/uploads/1...57689911-1.jpg | ||||||||||||
| #1201 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
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We still don't have a quantitative analysis of it. We know that your crit chance lowers, but we don't know the exactly mechanism behind it. There are at least three possibilities: subtractive penalty (-5%), multaplicative penalty (your crit rate goes down 1/10), and a revaluing of crit rating (and possibly int->crit as well) by the level 73 conversions instead of level 70. Note that the last two may actually resolve to be the same, minus an additive constant. No testing has been done, and the testing required to get a quantitative analysis would be prohibitively enourmous, compared to the qualitative testing to show that something was happening. | ||||||||||||
| #1202 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fimotik |
Following some controvery regarding Immolate in a guild that I raid an alt with, I had a look through a couple of months worth of WWS on my main (this lock). Theorycrafting is great, but it can be funny how things work out in practice.
By way of background, my guild is in the first half of BT, so I had access to WWS for all TK/SSC bosses, 4/5 Hyjal and 3/9 BT bosses. This toon is UA Affliction, so the results relate only to this build. What I found was a huge variance in the DPS output of both Shadow Bolt and Immolate. Our raid composition is fairly consistent, 3-4 locks, 3-4 mages (all fire or frost), 1-2 Shadow Priests (mostly 1, and I excluded those raids where no SPriest was present). Things that had a big impact: Miss rate variances between Immolate & SB, partial resist rate variances between Immolate & SB and crit rate variance between the two. Sometimes Shadow Bolt would crit at a rate 10% or more than Immolate, and the DPS increase in SB was huge (due to ISB procs). Conversely sometimes Immolate would crit much more than Shadow Bolt, making its damage per cast time value much higher than the SB average hit. Where miss, partial resist and crit rates did not differ signficantly, Immolate had competite damage per cast time. What I learnt from a fairly cursory glance through WWS was that whether to cast Immolate or not for an Affliction lock is a very complex issue, being greatly affected by one's own gear (crit in particular), the composition of the raid (number of warlocks, their specs and gear; presence and number of Shadow Priests; presence of a fire mage; plus other raid/party buffers like Moonkin, ele shammies etc. For example, with several locks with low crit rates, ISB uptime is going to be low. Add a couple of Shadow Priests and ISB uptime falls even further. Assuming a fire mage is in the raid, Immolate would have to be very appealing. Start changing the composition, have 2 locks with high crit rates, 1 SPriest, a Moonkin in their party and no fire mage, then Shadow Bolt really gets boosted. Unfortunately, no simple, one-size-fits-all answer to this debate it seems. | ||||||||||||
| #1203 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Botvinnik |
I've used shadow seer but that just tells you about your on SB, I'm looking for something that measures raid ISB uptime. Any idea?
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| #1204 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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If you just want a simple number that says %, you can look up the total raid shadow damage. It'll have (x% boosted by ISB) behind it. Divide x by 20% and there you have your uptime. For example, 10% damage boosted by ISB means 50% (=10/20) uptime. | ||||||||||||
| #1205 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bolche |
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As for more thorical approach, you can check the "Raid ISB" tab of my spreadsheet, it tries to factor SPs & warlocks cycles, and I beleave the results are pretty accurate. Lastly, you can try my ISB uptime simulator. | ||||||||||||
| #1206 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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I'm kind of hoping that 2.4 will allow me to rewrite ShadowSeer so that it posts 100% accurate data all the time. Not only when fighting enemies with non-identical names in your 30 yard range. | ||||||||||||
| #1207 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
Are my numbers off some how or is [Brooch of Nature's Mercy] the best neck for the hit capped destro lock?
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| #1208 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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If you are hit capped, it is a tossup between that, [The Sun King's Talisman], and [Translucent Spellthread Necklace] I plug in my stats, and the Nature's Mercy neck is about equal to those 3, but 2 of those have stamina. With my gear, they are all between +55 and +57 dps. | ||||||||||||
| #1209 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
On my sheet I've got:
[Brooch of Nature's Mercy] is 65.07 (counting the spirit as 3.8dmg) [Loop of Cursed Bones] is 61.45 [The Sun King's Talisman] is 60.36 The stamina loss is really a non issue since I'm not using any gear with low or no stamina (Belt of Blasting, FSW, etc). | ||||||||||||
| #1210 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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My raids rarely run with imp divine spirit, but I thought it was a 10% return, not a 20%? But if it is you might be correct. FWIW, though, I think the increased ISB uptime from Kael's or the RoS neck would put it close to on par with the Brooch. Plus with some regemming you could make use of the +hit on the latter. | ||||||||||||
| #1211 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
Could it get better than this as a Shadow Destro Lock ?
70 Undead Warlock Pop trinket for 2 sec bolts. I'm curious to know if BL would even reduce it under 2 sec ? Does BL and Haste stack ? Even if it doesn't I just can't see a better set of gear for 0/21/40. | ||||||||||||
| #1212 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Aliah_KT |
Has anyone looked into the accuracy of WOW Webstats and/or the Warcraft character sheet's accuracy on critical strike rating? I've noticed that my critical strike rating is almost always significantly less on WWS sheets than what it should be according to my calculations. I know WWS isn't exactly gospel, but perhaps someone could explain the reasoning for the following:
The World of Warcraft Armory (My Armory link, which indicates a spell critical strike rating of 26.03% [18.03 from Intellect and bonus crit rating, 8.00 from talents]) Wow Web Stats (A WWS parse of me and 200ish Shadow Bolts vs. Dr. Boom, which indicates a critical strike rating of 20.45%) I am wearing the same gear (except for maybe a slightly different damage trinket--no change in spell critical strike rating) on my character that I did during the Dr. Boom test. Two hundred seems like a reasonable sample size to see a relatively close correlation (+/- 2%) in critical strike rating, but this analysis seems to indicate a statistically significant discontinuity. If anyone has any insight on this, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks! | ||||||||||||
| #1213 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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As for the "always lower", make sure you don't "forget" the WWS parses where it was higher. People tend to quickly forget those. | ||||||||||||
| #1214 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Aliah_KT |
Thanks for the statistics--very informative. While it does make me feel better about my numbers' variance, I'm still not 100% convinced we're seeing the whole picture. I'm sure it's only in my head, but I can't seem to remember a single time where I looked at my critical strike statistics and found the rate significantly higher (certainly nowhere near 5-10%) than what I expected. Perhaps I am just unlucky. It would be interesting to see if anyone has ever done a test on the order of a thousand or more spell strikes to more accurately gauge Blizzard's numbers. Seeing as how major a factor spell critical strikes are for our highest-DPS class raiding build (0/21/40), as well as other classes', I'd be surprised if there wasn't some more hard experimental data available.
Thanks again, and I'd welcome anyone else's input into this. | ||||||||||||
| #1215 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Keep in mind that even if your crit was 5% less, assuming it's just 5% less but still you gain 1% per 22.1 and per point in devastation etc, your stat choices would be nearly the same. And it's probably not the case anyway - feel free to sit on DR. boom and shoot 2000+ shadowbolts and provide wws. And if lower crit on bosses is the case, then it must be small enough for people to not notice, and again a fixed reduction to crit will make very little change on how you look at stats.
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| #1216 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kalle |
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For a sample of where | ||||||||||||
| #1217 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate | |||||||||||||
| #1218 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Aliah_KT | |||||||||||||
| #1219 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
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Get [Belt of Blasting] with spinels, [mana-attuned band], replace orange gems with [Potent Pyrestone] and get [Shroud of the Highborne] (or [Cloak of the Illidari Council]) for a ~15 DPS upgrade in the sandbox sheet. | ||||||||||||
| #1220 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pentamorfi |
I've seen a lot of people talk about using [Vestments of the Sea-Witch] over [Robe of the Malefic]. This would mean people would drop [Leggings of Channeled Elements] for [Leggings of the Malefic], in order to maintain 4pc T6.
I don't see the reasoning behind it. Assuming you gem every available gem slot with crimson spinels, you're giving up 30 spell damage for 34 crit rating. Even in a destro spec, 1 crit is worth about 0.7 damage, resulting in what looks like a DPS loss. What am I missing? | ||||||||||||
| #1221 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
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Sure, I could put BoB on this, but if you want to get a decent haste rating your gonna have to sacrifice some items. The important thing is to stay hit capped , improve haste rating w/o saccing too much spell/crit. | ||||||||||||
| #1222 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1223 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
http://elitistjerks.com/573011-post567.html
This post from the past also lists a bit more info about 4/5 t6 setups. I remember coming to the conclusion that [Vestments of the Sea-Witch] were the way to go, though looking back now I can't remember why. [Leggings of Channeled Elements] also have 5.6dmg worth of spirit, pushing it even further ahead. It seems that there are many ideas about the best gear setup. This mostly comes from the cap on hit and the fact that there is so much hit available you have to choose which item slots should have any. I think I'm going to load up some numbers comparing total sets instead of just between items and see if I can find what the overall optimum setup would be. | ||||||||||||
| #1224 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Improved Divine Spirit Rank 2
Your Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit spells also increase the target's spell damage and healing by an amount equal to 10% of their total Spirit. Also don't forget somewhere around 80 int gives 1% crit, so int is even less neglicible than spirit for your dps, as with kings 1 int gives something like 0.3 crit rating, and when items have 20-40 int on them it's far from neglicible. | ||||||||||||
| #1225 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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I would personally never consider using the Supremus belt, the Anetheron one with its sockets is a much better belt (just so much more damage) and the Belt of Blasting is the only other alternative (if you need hit). You could even it out a little by picking up the Anetheron belt, the Najentus ring (or the ZA chest one if you prefer it still has haste), and re-gemming you're oranges as crit/damage gems. As far as you're other question, yes Blood Lust works like all other haste and would stack with the trinket/passive haste. | ||||||||||||
| #1226 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
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70 Human Warlock And, finally, I believe this is the best gear set for a warlock with an elemental shaman, other raid buffs, and food/flask/oil, though no shadow priest which only matters on the spreadsheet's mp5. After entering all the data to the spreadsheet I got 2222.85dps. After tinkering with this for quite a while I found most dps changes were within 5dps of each other, with only one set at 14dps difference, so most gear setups will probably all perform the same with all endgame gear. Though if anyone see's a better option I'd be glad to try it. Last edited by Eph : 01/29/08 at 9:28 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1227 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
You should definately drop Nethervoid Cloak for council/illidan cape and swap in a Mana Attuned Band or Belt of Blasting.
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| #1228 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
EDIT Cloak + Belt of Blasting actually increased dps by 0.56. Updating outfit link above.
Last edited by Eph : 01/29/08 at 5:51 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1229 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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I'm actually considering going for the Skull before Zhar'doom. | ||||||||||||
| #1230 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Anyone done the math on immolate for affliction? As in wether it's worth refreshing early to get 100% uptime or just refreshing it after every time you refresh UA+corruption? I've seen this brought up before but no answer was found.
Basically 2 possible rotations: UA-corruption-immolate-bolt/tap/pact/dance-repeat -OR- UA-corruption-immolate-bolt/etc-immolate-UA-corruption... In a way that your UA and corruption will not be delayed (as in, the early immolate will be finished casting 3 seconds before it wore off losing 1 tick and 1.5s of shadowbolt spam time). Then every rotation the immolate will move closer and closer to the UA-corruption portion and when it needs casting immidiately after the UA-corruption the loop starts over. Every you get: -1.5s shadowbolting ever 4 rotations (=15/3-1) (and +mana cost affiliated with it) +immolate direct damage every 4 rotations (and -mana cost affiliated with it) +immolate tick every 4 rotations Of course since all the gains and losses only happne once every 4 rotations the fact it's every 4 rotations doesn't matter at all. I will do the math myself to verify of course but I want to make sure I'm getting it right. Overall seems to be a DPS loss regardless of your stats and you should just let immolate fall off and refresh it after UA+corruption as shadowboltX1.5/2.5>immolate tick+immolate hit Last edited by galzohar : 01/30/08 at 7:10 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1231 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
If you're using immolate at all, you should be refreshing it as soon as it drops off. You cast it because it has higher DPCT than shadowbolt, and if it does you want to take advantage of that higher DPCT as often as possible. You will, in general, prioritize UA and corruption and just about every other spell in your spellbook as a higher priority except shadowbolt. It will have a higher DoT-gap than any of your other DoTs, which means that it's increasing your damage by less than its theoretical max, but still more than refreshing it every 18 seconds.
Whether or not immolate is worth casting in general depends on everything. I believe the presence or absence of frost mages in your guild is about the only thing that doesn't affect whether or not immolate is worth casting. It tends to hover on the edge of worth casting, being pushed to one side or the other by just about everything. | ||||||||||||
| #1232 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1233 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Drained |
Perfecting DPS
I have begun to read over the compendium and even after a considerable amount of time I have not made a dent in the information presented here. For this reason I wanted to directly ask the community a few simple questions. A little background info before I list my questions though. First, my guild is rapidly progressing and is 2/5 Hyjal thus far since our conception 3 weeks ago. Second, our raids usually consist of 2-3 fire mages, 1-2 spriests, 1 ele shammy, and anywhere from 2-4 locks (50% aff, 50% destro). Third, my self-buffed (fel armor only, no consumables) stats are as follows: 203 hit, 1223 shdw dmg, 1115 fire dmg, 14.83% crit.
My questions are: 1)Should I effectively be able to go destro with these stats? I tried it out on a full SSC clear and a Rage kill in Hyjal but was unimpressed. My crit felt low, thus not taking advantage of Ruin that often (cast sequence was Imm>SB spam). Or was my cast sequence garbage? 2)If destro cannot be pulled off with these stats, what spell rotation would be most beneficial to my spec (42/1/18)? I currently use CoA>UA>Corr>Imm>SB spam till first dots fall off>repeat. 3)Is haste worth it when I switch to destro? When I say worth it, I would be taking the Waistwrap of Infinity, Nimble Thought Bracers, and Ring of Ancient Knowledge. Or would it be better to go with pure dmg/crit over these items? It seems like haste would not be worth it if I stuck to the Imm>SB spam rotation because I would not be able to obtain enough haste to squeeze in an extra SB before reapplying Imm, hence rendering any haste virtually useless (using a rough calculation, I came up with ~185 haste rating needed to be able to squeeze in 6 SBs without losing a tick of Imm. This may be way off though.). I apologize in advance if this has all been covered. I am asking because I am extremely competitive and have noticed being passed up by a destro lock, and an arcane mage (surprisingly enough) on the meters. Please offer any and all advice you can. Thanks in advance for the help. Last edited by Drained : 01/31/08 at 10:07 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1234 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | moghed |
We recently had a new warlock app who was speced destruction. His gear seemed slightly low for it, so I plugged it into the spreadsheet. Turned out destro was better. Slightly.
The World of Warcraft Armory It's a very good illustration of the gear level you need for destro to be better. And it is late kara/early SSC. | ||||||||||||
| #1235 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shai |
Your crit rate as destro would be closer to 25% after talents and raid buffs, which is perfectly fine for that spec, as is the rest of your stats.
Why you were still below other casters can have many reasons, a look at a WWS parse would probably answer that best. | ||||||||||||
| #1236 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
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2) Siphon Life is also worth casting. 3) Yes, up to 5-6% haste (in my experience). But drop Immolate, it's a distraction. One thing that isn't mentioned much here: Your dps depends most of all on how good a player you are. If you want to max your dps you can't lose any time at all not casting a dps spell. That means - always always having a Shadow Bolt going - plan when to use trinkets - discuss when to use drums and Bloodlust with your group - macro your mana pot use and plan Life Taps for breaks in the action or if you are high on threat Every boss is different and you want a personal and raid wide strategy for each. | ||||||||||||
| #1237 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bolche | |||||||||||||
| #1238 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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1) Yes, you can be very effective at Destruction with those stats. The only reason I am not 0/21/40 anymore is that my guild needs a 3/3 Improved Imp and I need threat reduction or I spend 40-50% of a fight threat-locked. 3) Check the spreadsheet. You can find out what the rate of return on spellhaste is for your specific builds, specific stats. You can also play around in Warcrafter for the sake of easily changing out gear/gems/enchantments if nothing else. I generally find that going out of my way to stack spellhaste in my gear level (craftables/kara/gruul/tk) is not as valuable as stacking damage. This is something that changes frequently with gear acquisitions. I use two spellhaste items because they work best for me. I use the badge-reward bracers because they do 3 more spelldamage than the ones I got in Karazhan, and I use the Fetish of the Primal Gods because it has a stamina boost that Orb of the Soul Eater does not. I switch between those two off-hands. While it would be nice to be able to really use spellhaste gear and stack it, I know from using the spreadsheet that raw damage helps me more. For what it's worth, I have never gone out of my way to stack spellcrit on any gear. Most people find spellhaste and crit are about the same in DPS value, though spelldamage is typically going to end up being your best place for improvement. | ||||||||||||
| #1239 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Drained |
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1) I assume you meant "...don't go destro until you have these bosses down...". Are you suggesting do the fights the first time through as affilction, then respec destro when our guild has them down? 2) If I do add SL to my DoT rotation, when would be the best time to cast it? 3) Can dropping immolate and just pure SB nuking really add to DPS? I have always heard immolate is worth casting. Very interested to hear any math/reasoning behind this. Thanks again for the help! | ||||||||||||
| #1240 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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3) Check the spreadsheet? It is very dependent upon the individual. The math is on the first post in this thread, as is a link to the spreadsheet. There is even information on the very first post about Immolate versus Shadowbolt. I'll even quote it for you: ![]()
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| #1241 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cohren |
There is no reason to wait for boss xx to be on farm. Doing high DPS as Destruction is just like doing high DPS with Affliction, you need to learn the spec and the play style. Also it comes down to what Fafhrd said, you need to be a skilled player. If your going to spec Destruction then try it over a period of time, not one clear of an instance.
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| #1242 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
I'm pretty sure he just means remember to pot as destro in order to minimize your DPS-time spent Life Tapping. Saving life tap for non-DPS times (or lower DPS times) will increase your damage by a fair amount. Just be mindful of upcoming movement, BLs, drums, trinket cds, "Stop DPS" calls, etc.
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| #1243 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Knasen |
I wonder why felguard gets so little attention. The personal dps is alot better than destro in early t6, do the ISB uptime really do so much for the raid? Sure, the felguard is useless on Archi and Najentus but on the rest of the fight he really shines (done up to Bloodboil). I don't dare to think of what petscaling would give the specc.
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| #1244 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1245 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1246 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
Use a simple macro for taking mana pots, minimizing time lost casting:
- /use Super Mana Potion /cast Shadow Bolt - For Life Taps, sometimes it's more beneficial to do a tap as soon as you can to fill the mana bar up, but you should plan it so you have enough mana to go all out during Bloodlust/drums/trinkets. This also depends on if you can expect healing or expect to take damage. About using Immolate: On paper it's often a few dps more than just SB - even taking ISB uptime in account, but in real life it often interferes with your timing and you lose either casting time or part of a dot. If there's movement in the fight I usually put it up before moving though. Last edited by Fafhrd : 01/31/08 at 1:43 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1247 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
For affliction it seems on the spreadsheet to not really matter what variables you try to change, immolate is always worth casting. For destruction I agree it's different.
As for dot juggling, since you always cast UA+corruption together (unless you get a resist), no matter when you cast immolate, sooner or later (in fact, in the 5th UA+corruption cast at most if you're not moving every time UA+corruption need refreshing), immolate will run out at the same time as UA+corruption. At that point you obviously choose to refresh UA+corruption first and immolate later. However I was looking into the option of refreshing immolate too early instead of too late so that it has 100% uptime without losing any UA/corruption damage, however it just doesn't seem worth it. The result is if you stand and shoot you will always refresh immolate right after UA+corruption (ignoring resists), which means once every 18 seconds (plus whatever dot gap you have that applies to all dots). There is no way around this that will actually increase your DPS. | ||||||||||||
| #1248 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | vreki |
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| #1249 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #1250 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shai |
Was Darkmoon Card: Crusade changed to proc on all SoC hits or did it always do that? I seem to remember it only added a charge on the initial spell hit, but while doing Hyjal trash I just noticed it goes from 0 to 10 in one explosion.
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| #1251 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
Don't know that it was changed, as far as I know it always has.
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| #1252 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | vreki | |||||||||||||
| #1253 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #1254 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | aphro1 |
Meta of choice for end game raiding?
Hi everyone, just a quick question, i wanted to know if anyone has tried the meta gem entitled [Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] in end game raiding (BT/MH)
I was under the impression it would not work properly with caster dps, althou when looking at it, in theory it might work. The benefits would in theory be only 9 spelldamage and -2% threat, (i would only loose out 3 spelldamage and minor run speed on my current choice of meta) which whilst added to destructive reach and subtlety enchant, shud be quite nice, (-14% threat), especially for insane agro generating destro locks. Has anyone tried it ? thanks in advance aph edit: the item link is out of date, the current stats of the gem is 26 healing and 9 spelldamage, and 2% reduced threat., also the gem requirements are "more red than blue". Bracing Earthstorm Diamond @ wowhead Last edited by aphro1 : 01/31/08 at 6:18 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1255 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
The BED does give 9 damage as well as 2% threat and has very easy gem requirements.
If you need the -threat (i.e. have poor tanks), then it is an option. | ||||||||||||
| #1256 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Alonso |
Hi guys just a quick question. I heard of 21/40 build in terms of shadow, and I understand that understand that it would require at least 1000 shadow damage, 202 spell hit and 20% spell critical.
I have a few questions 20% spell critical includes talents? I do understand that warlocks need 202 spell hit on level 73 bosses. If i would have 190 spell hit, does it means that my shadow bolt is not getting full damage? or is it just 2% chance missing when up against a level 73 boss. I have viewed many end game locks in armory and seen many locks do not have 20% crit UNTALENTED, they are mainly in BT. How much does crit out dps spell damage in end games? I have recently tried to hit 202 spell hit, 20% crit, and 1000 shadow damage(unbuff.) Can I get help/suggestions on my current gear/spec best on my gear. The World of Warcraft Armory Currently my shadowbolts hit for 2.6k average and 4k when crit, is this normal? How much a 21/40 warlock damages when shadow bolting? Seeking for help to improved raiding. Thank you. | ||||||||||||
| #1257 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
It could conceivably be an option and might be worth adding to the meta section in the OP, but you would have to be in really dire straits to take it over the CSD. You're better off trying to get a TA totem or getting a shaman in your tank group to help with threat, but if you don't have any other options you could check it out... but if you're having such horrible threat problems that you are considering this I doubt the 2% threat reduction is going to be that big of a benefit. Just my opinion though.
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| #1258 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Ele' |
[Edit] My bad, I mistaked the T6 helm for the Illidan one... so let me delete this useless post and blame that on the lack of coffee :'(
Last edited by Ele' : 02/01/08 at 4:04 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1259 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Talosh |
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One of the best advantages of destro is when learning fights, since you don't have to watch your DoTimer and can concentrate much more on the encounter itself (Illidan Council is a very good example to avoid the AoE effects). | ||||||||||||
| #1260 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Xzal |
Offtanking Illidan
Couldnt find a specific thread for this, but all the strats didnt say anything about whether or not Netherprotection is a go or no-go when offtanking. i know it makes me immune, but not totally positive if that'll make me temp break aggro while its procced
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| #1261 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Codpiece |
Token Affliction lock chiming in here! Sorry if this has allready been covered a million times, but I'm wondering if I should switch over to 40/0/21. Putting my numbers in the spreadsheets give me lower DPS, but I was thinking if the spec would actually give me better utility (like dps on trash, less pushback on bolts) and maybe even more dps. I was thinking that since the spreadsheet measures perfect play, and less dots are "easier" to play that I actually would be able to put out more dps in real encounters.
Also, I'm guessing that when putting nubers into the spreadsheet I should do so raid buffed, as that's the situation I'm trying to measure. I guess I'm looking for people who has experience with this spec and could tell me if my gear was up for the switch. I'm intentionally a little low on hit as supression helps me out a great deal. This factor will of course diminish slightly if I made the switch. I'd love to do a little more DPS, annoys the hell out of me that having more stuff to do gimps my dps. Ah well, at least I'm enjoying it. Tried destro for some time, and I guess the big numbers are fun :P <- armory profile at the avatar space | ||||||||||||
| #1262 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Actually with the "DoT gap" in the spreadsheet sometimes it actually undervalues your ability to play well, as the default is set to 2 seconds which is probably too high considering on average it'd be 1/2 a shadowbolt + safety measure (where safety measure should be (<max latency> - <minimum latency>), which is generally a rather small number), and even less if you do a tap/pact when you see the gap with shadowbolt would be >1s, so if you can actually get mana from LT/DP at that point every time it happens your dot gap will actually go down to an average of 0.75s+safety. Anyway I don't see a reason for average 2s dot gap other than simply bad play or very very movement intensive fight, which would hurt your shadowbolts more than it hurts your DoTs anyway.
Also the ruin build will also gain a lot less from fights that allow multi-dotting and will lose more on fights where you need to move, but will gain more from fights with just enough pushback to make UA builds lose a lot of dps time but not extreme pushback as that would make you unable to cast much more than your DoTs anyway (although such a high level of pushback is quite unrealistic in most fights at least, so overall you can say the ruin build is more pushback resistant). | ||||||||||||
| #1263 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Codpiece |
I never even noticed that option, that spreadsheet is more elaborate than I thought
Thanks for the reply, I'm guessing that means that I have no reason to switch over. It seems as if i need several pieces of BT/MH pieces to spec out of UA. Was just wondering since the spec was mentioned in the OP. 0/21/40 is not really an option as I'm the malediction/imp/SE bitch. | ||||||||||||
| #1264 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
ISB simulator and results
Just figured I'd post what I got playing with the ISB simulator, considering how much sampling it took and that such experiements weren't really done before to evaluate the extra value of crit that comes from ISB:
Baseline: 1 aff lock (20% crit), 2 destro locks (2% haste each. 30% crit), 3 shadow priests. ISB uptime: 55.62 +-0.13 % Adding 3% crit to the aff lock: ISB uptime: 56.53 +-0.13 % Adding 3% to a destro lock (instead of the aff lock): ISB uptime: 57.05 +-0.11 % Note that the '+-' is because of variance, I ran the simulator at max fight length 50 times for each setup to get those results. Would take much longer to significantly reduce the error. ISB increase for adding 3% to the aff lock: 0.9 +-0.19 % ISB increase for adding 3% to the destro lock: 1.42 +-0.17 % Assuming the ISB time is approximately linear to the crit chance at this range (as in, I know it's not linear, but assuming it's close enough to linear when you only change crit chance by 3%) allows to say: ISB increase per crit rating for the aff lock: 0.0045 +-0.0029 % ISB increase per crit rating for the destro lock: 0.0215 +-0.0026 % Assuming DPS for the shadow priests and destruction warlocks and multiplying the total by the ISB increase * 0.2 (since ISB is 20% increase when it's up) yields a noticeable increase in crit value in comparison to spell damage. My baseline affliction warlock for example goes up from 0.22 dmg per 1 crit rating to 0.33, and the destruction lock goes from 0.6 spell dmg per crit rating up to 1. Playing with different stats slightly changes this, of course, but the bottom line is ISB is a rather significant factor when it comes for determining the value of crit rating for all warlocks (even affliction), and 1 crit rating can actually beat 1 spell damage (or at least come very close). This still means +12 damage gems are the best but items with yellow sockets and a good socket bonus suddenly become something worth considering (for example 2 dmg bonus for yellow socket makes 6 dmg 5 crit superior to 12 damage in that socket). I do wish the simulator would allow you to run much longer fights to reduce the variance in the results, though, as going over it 50 times was bad enough, improving it noticeably would require at least 200 measurements (150 more for each setup!)... Since it's just a loop that repeats itself I see no reason to just allow it to run longer, however as of now there is still a maximum. On a side note the huge variance in ISB uptime on such a long measurement means it's completely pointless to use any WWS/combatlog or any kind of in-game measurements to determine the value of ISB, even if it actually becomes possible to do so accurately in 2.4. | ||||||||||||
| #1265 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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Isb increase by adding 3% crit to: Aff: 0.94 Dest: 1.67 Given that, the simulator really doesn't need to be stretched much more since it seems to be agreeing with modeled numbers pretty damn well (which are included in the latest spreadsheet). I've been using a number between 0.9-1.05 for crit for a while depending on the typical raid composition. | ||||||||||||
| #1266 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
Finally a buff for in 2.4 Affliction Locks (too bad Destro still scales better with haste), with 520 spell haste rating you can cast your DoTs 0.5 seconds faster .
I need to pickup a ring of ancient knowledge now. | ||||||||||||
| #1267 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
The reason the simulator needs to be stretched a LOT is that I needed to run it 50 times at max length just to get ~0.1-0.15% error. Increase the max to 250-1000 times as much as it is now and you can get rather reliable results by just running it once.
Remember that assuming something that we know is not linear scales linearly is only approximately true when your value doesn't change much. At first I wanted to run it with 1% crit difference however I ended up with a deviation too close to the actual difference and thus the results were meaningless. If the simulator could give a deviation of the uptime as well it would be awesome too, so you don't have to run it several times to see how accurate it is. If you go to the simulator and run it a couple times you'll see what I mean. Anyway the bottom line is it makes crit more or less on par with spell dmg point for point for destruction, which is noticeably higher than the spreadsheet shows. And for affliction it's more like 0.33 rather than 0.22, which while still low is a significant difference. EDIT: Looking at the formulas the spreadsheet does seem to assume SWD is being cast every 12 seconds, which set my results off a little. Wish you could set overall shadow damage spells frequency for shadow priest that I can get from a shadow priest simulator, considering VT and probably SWP are still a priority for MB/SWD. Last edited by galzohar : 02/01/08 at 7:46 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1268 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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Are you using the latest version of the spreadsheet? Mine puts crit at roughly the same value as spell damage if you use the Raid ISB tab. If anything the model slightly OVER-emphasizes crit compared to the sims. | ||||||||||||
| #1269 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
Made some quick calculations, and the buff to spell haste affecting GCD is about 1% buff to dps for a 0/21/40 warlock with 5% spell haste ratings, maybe 1.5%.
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| #1270 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I was using an older version that didn't have the "Raid TNS" option. Looking at the default raid ISB settings you need to change a lot there to match a real raid (for example SWDs not counted, do 1/(1/MBCD+1/SWDCD) to get real average time between shadow spells for shadow priest, but remember sometimes it doesn't sync so it's actually a little longer than that). Using that I get exactly 1 crit = 1 dmg, which is pretty much what I got using the old spreadsheet version modifying crit myself.
So yeah no point with the simulator when the model works just fine and doesn't have variance ;p The practical conclusion remains the same, 1 crit is more or less equal to 1 spell dmg for a destruction warlock, which is much higher than how good crit is for any other class (even fire mages only get 0.7-0.85 or so). | ||||||||||||
| #1271 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
I figured it would be a non issue till i remembered lifetap will get affected by it too. Its not the biggest DPS increase in the world, but it makes stacking haste much less of a liability than it used to be.
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| #1272 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
2.4 changes will actually make it a lot more realistic to get 2XUA/corruption inside a 20s trinket, but that would require actually equip haste which isn't exactly a top stat for you considering it doesn't make dots tick any faster ;p
Haste for destruction will probably see a nice small improvement, and will chage the point where immolate turns from worth casting to not worth casting if you have any haste. Looking at the effect casting immolate has on ISB, it makes it pretty break-even with full fire talents, scorch and CoE if you consider the ISB drop, although with stats close to default it's still a very (VERY) small DPS gain. With extremely high spell dmg and/or 4/6 T6 it becomes just a waste of a spot on your castbar. Last edited by galzohar : 02/01/08 at 7:52 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1273 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Brachamul |
Hi, just a quick question about Shadow and Fire destro.
It is said in the original post that, thanks to ISB, Shadow scales better than Fire. However Fire also gets a bonus from the mage's +15% debuff thanks to Scorch. In the end though I guess Shadow also gains 10% from priests that Fire doesn't get... I'm confused about which between Fire and Shadow is the better DPS. I've calculated that just spamming SB can bring a Lock with SSC/TK gear to 1600 dps, and that seems kinda... lame. | ||||||||||||
| #1274 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1275 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pentamorfi |
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About crit, theorycraft will tell you that 20% talented crit will be enough for Destro, in practice though I've found that anything shy of 25% "feels" quite lame. You'll be getting long streaks of 3k bolts, and I found that boring and demoralising, even when compared to the steady damage Affliction does. 190 hit rating means that roughly 2% of your spells will be resisted completely, not partially. Spell hit doesn't help with partial resists, spell penetration does, and you get all you need with CoE/CoS most of the time. Yeah, your numbers sound normal considering you don't have Ruin. A destro lock in your gear would see hits of around 2.9k and crits of 5.8k+. Looking at your gear, don't forget that damage amplifies your DPS more than crit ever will. If I were you, I'd change those crit and crit/dmg gems for pure damage and drop Xiri's gift for the badges or the ZA trinket. And I'd wait a bit longer before speccing Destro, to be honest. That's just my personal opinion though, not gospel. | ||||||||||||
| #1276 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I don't see the point of saying a spec is "dull" in a thread that's supposed to be about how to play effectively. If you find something superior boring in comparison to the inferior choice, nobody will ever be able to convince you otherwise, as "interest" is a very personal thing. If you want to play "what's interesting" instead of "what's effective" why are you even reading those forums? As you're obviously ignoring what actually effects your dps...
Bottom line, you can theorycraft what will do most dps, you can't theorycraft what will be most fun, so I wouldn't even bother trying | ||||||||||||
| #1277 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
Any warlock also has questions about how the supposed change with haste in regards to global cooldown is going to affect affliction dps ? ( Haste will reduce the GCD in 2.4 )
Can it be a significant improvement for affliction dps ? I am troubled by it as now spellhaste will affect ALL spells so it should ( ? ) be better than crit point for point, but thing that troubles me is that you are going to lose imp. SB uptime which means a dps loss again. Other problem is is that you are going to have an about normal amount of crit ( BT geared : 20% raidbuffed ? ) and then take spellhaste gear , I feel that you are going to lose too much spelldamage to gain any benefit from it at all in fact I think you will even lose quite some. So question : Is pumping up spellhaste even a good way to go despite the changes that might favor it ? Or is there an ideal amount of spellhaste to go for ? Im sorry I havent been able to provide any math, I admit it is too complicated for me. Basicly what I want to know is at what crit% does spellhase become more important than crit and is there gear obtainable to have both without losing spelldamage ( which still seems most important stat to me ). Variables : Spelldamage ( assuming 1500 raidbuffed in BT gear ? ) Crit rating Haste rating Many thanks in advance ! | ||||||||||||
| #1278 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Your DoTs will not tick any faster and thus the extra haste will only mean a reduction to time spent casting 1.5s spells on top of what it was already giving, meaning you can fill in more shadowbolts. According to lieuler's spreadsheet in tank group aff lock would spend about 10% of the time DP/LT, and ~44% casting non-shadowbolt spells, so haste will be quite better for aff than it is now. However:
On a X minute fight, 1% haste will increase cast time used on *shadowbolts* by X/100, and still not a 1% dps increase. Since with the stats I put in shadowbolts are only 1221 dps, 1% haste will increase the overall dps by 12.2 which is less than 1% of the total 1455 dps. Since this is just for showing the general idea I'm not going to go into mana costs. Overall modifying lieuler's spreadsheet to account for the change should be pretty easy, except for "the next stat" part since I'm not sure how that is calculated. | ||||||||||||
| #1279 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
The haste change will make 1% haste give a full 1% damage increase to destro locks, instead of the sub-1% they used to see because of lifetap, bringing them in line with mage types for haste scaling. For affliction warlocks the picture is considerably more complicated, but I can tell you flat out that 1% haste will be noticeably less than 1% damage. Until haste starts accelerating the rate at which DoTs tick, you are still hard-capped on how often you can refresh your DoTs. They will still do the same damage. The haste-GCD means haste now allows you to cram more additional shadowbolts, although realistically the additional shadowbolts will not come out to one full shadowbolt, except in bloodlust/heroism situations, meaning no real benefit.
Note that while 1% haste means more than 1% additional shadowbolts in an affliction (or otherwise cooldown-limited or pseudo-cooldown-limited) situation, some quick and easy thought experiments can easily show that without duration hasting, it will always be less than 1% raw damage so long as the cooldown-limited spells are worth casting at all (ie better DPCT than the filler). | ||||||||||||
| #1280 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I already said it was fight length X1% spent on shadowbolt casting rather than 1% more shadowbolts, which is still less than a 1% DPS increase since the DoTs are higher DPCT and you're not casting more DoTs.
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| #1281 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Talosh |
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- more ISB-uptime, more raiddps - the stupidity of a one-button-spam allows me to care more for the felguard ![]()
It only results, that all kind of caster classes are going for the haste items no matter if its even less worthy than for another raid member (in my guild now ALL mages and warlocks wants the trinket and the staff, before the news were released only one fire mage and me were interested in the haste items). Last edited by Talosh : 02/04/08 at 3:53 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1282 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
You need to watch the line between ISB uptime and personal DPS. Include it in your calculations, but dropping spells which will easily up your DPS is probably detrimental to overall Raid DPS. The SB-spam out of a FG spec isn't that spectacular, so I would suggest making sure you're casting the right spells. An extra DoT or two isn't going to sap too much attention from pet management.
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| #1283 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Yugra |
I'm looking for advice on increasing my DPS, given the roles that I currently fill in raids - Strider kiter and Leotheras tank. My current spec.
A little background: I'm in a raiding organization, not a guild - so our raid composition can vary greatly from night to night, and I've respecced to support both my Leo tanking and Strider kiting roles. When I was 21/40 (before we got to Vashj, our first kill was last night), I could put out around 1.2k DPS on a non-AE fight with my current gear (no frozen shadoweave) and often troubled connection. On the same fights now, my DPS is down in the 750-850 range - and so I'm feeling pretty gimped. I've got CoEx to help keep the striders slowed (and DoT boosting talents to help with threat), and improved searing pain for Leotheras (and the striders, when netted). CoEx is pretty necessary here, as I need to run with the assumption that the only other slowing/immobilizing effect will be nets (we usually have more slows, however I need to spec for the worst-case scenario). Are there any suggestions as to how I can increase my DPS - perhaps an improved spec that allows me to support both roles? Or am I pretty much stuck with my current performance level given my raiding situation? Thanks. (armory may not be accurately reflecting my gear for boss fights, so please don't yell about my spellhit >_>) Last edited by Yugra : 02/04/08 at 3:19 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1284 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1285 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Valgasha |
Affliction and Hit Rating
Apologies if this has been asked before, a search of the thread produced nothing -
I am looking for some further commentary / verification of the first post's claim that Affliction is better off with 76 spell hit and 5/5 Suppression, gemming for +damage, than gemming for hit cap. I've recently been switched from 0/21/40 to the Affliction utility Warlock; I am still gemmed with a good number of +8s for the hitcap. I'm wondering if it's worth it to re-gem. Price is no object, just whether +9 spell damage gems are worth more, point-for-point, than +8 spell hit gems. | ||||||||||||
| #1286 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
You need 44 in affliction to get CoEx and keep all the basic raiding talents.
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| #1287 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bogeywoman |
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| #1288 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If your tanks can't out-threat an "imp-bitch" affliction warlock then you have bigger issues. If you're speccing for dps rather than imp/shadow embrace might as well consider destruction, as it will add more raid dps than affliction assuming your gear doesn't completely suck (and if it does you won't be threat capped anyway).
Shadowbolts resisting is perfectly fine as in the end you're doing more dps with stacking damage - you lose some shadowbolt dps and gain quite a bit of dot damage in comparision when you drop hit for dmg. Overall it's a net increase in DPS. Banishes and any other CC are never done on "boss" mobs, so your 6% hit that even affliction with 5/5 suppression should have will more than hit-cap you on level 72 mobs. The only thing you're losing is avoiding soulshatter resists, which shouldn't really be a problem not to mention even if you cap your hit it'll still have a 1% chance to resist. So even with 6% hit it'll resist on 10/100 fights, out of the many many more fights where you actually need it. See warrior thread for more about threat capping. | ||||||||||||
| #1289 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If we know the AOE caps can they be included in the main post with explanations?
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| #1290 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #1291 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
I have roughly calculated the new gains from haste. Assuming ~115 Haste, 1600 shadow dmg, you'll gain about 20 dps from the quicker lifetap and IF they make it so haste affects dot duration (which it should) your CoD will go down to ~55 seconds, which is an improvement of ~20 dps also. Man that would be pretty sweet.
edit, although looking at it again, unless they decrease the CoD cooldown, it won't actually gain much benefit. Last edited by rochan : 02/05/08 at 10:38 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1292 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Indaril |
Last edited by Indaril : 02/05/08 at 10:37 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1293 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
WoW Forums -> Sunday morning PTR AoE Cap testing
Post 50 Seed of Corruption AoE cap is 13580. Cap is the total amount of non-crit damage on all targets that are hit and didn't resist. The cap includes +damage gear and talents, and damage buffs like zone buffs, arcane power, power infusion and (most likely, needs a quick test demonic sacrifice. Crit allows to go over the cap. Debuffs on the target might allow to go over the cap as well (CoE/CoS/Misery/Vulnerability) - debuffed targets in a pack take more damage than non-debuffed ones. That should still be up to date, I hope. | ||||||||||||
| #1294 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
![]() Use a dmg/crit orange gem in your hat. Maybe into your gloves too. Try the Illidari Council cloak, you should be able to bridge the hit cap with the Ring of Captured Storms or a dmg/hit gem in one slot. You need to experiment a bit there. | ||||||||||||
| #1295 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Eph |
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I posted the ideal set for a lock with an elemental shaman a few pages back ( 70 Human Warlock ), for a lock without one I believe the only changes were [Tempest of Chaos], [Chronicle of Dark Secrets], [Wand of the Forgotten Star] and getting socked bonus in the gloves and shoulders for max dps. Both of these setups were tested with every other gear change I could think of and compared on the spreadsheet. I could have missed something though. | ||||||||||||
| #1296 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Indaril |
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Wanted to get 202 hit simply because I didn't want to really rely on a shaman in my group. So the link is updated, any more feedback? 70 Human Warlock | ||||||||||||
| #1297 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bogeywoman |
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Remember, there's damage meters, and there's dead bosses. You want to maximize the latter. | ||||||||||||
| #1298 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Eph |
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| #1299 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wraithscythe |
Hey I'm wondering if there is anything I can change in my gear and spec to improve my raid dps. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Talented Crit chance - 23.99% is this to much for the raid Affliction warlock? 203 hit rating this is maxed. 1181 shadow damage with just Fel Armor on. Guessing this should be alot higher. Armory Link | ||||||||||||
| #1300 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Replace neckpiece with Rittsyn's, ZJ neck, or Kael neck. Make a Belt of Blasting. Replace t5 gloves with badge gloves. | ||||||||||||
| #1301 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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| #1302 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silverstorm |
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Given your current gear (as of now in Armory), you're over the hit cap by 14. I would at least change all those +8 hit gems to the +4 hit/+5 dmg versions. That would drop 20 hit, and put you just under. With the T5 robe you have 3 yellow sockets for more +4 hit/+5 dmg gems which probably opens up some of the other sockets for +9 dmg to meet socket bonuses where possible. They aren't all good, but if your gems let you meet them with good stats, why not? | ||||||||||||
| #1303 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wraithscythe |
I would go Destruction but no other warlock in the raid will go Affliction. Is it that raid viable? Malediction is nice because we carry on average 2 Shadow priests and 4 Warlocks sometimes 5 if the mages forget to come. About the Crit chance as a Aff Lock is it 20% gear or 20% talented base chance? Right now I sit at 18.99% crit just in gear without the 5% chance from the destruction tree. With it it puts me well over 20% so I'm basically wondering if I should drop some crit and stack on more +dmg.
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| #1304 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | gunit12 |
Enchants
I've searched all 53 pages of this thread and was unable to find my question, so here goes.
As a 0/21/40 Destruction Warlock, which weapon enchant should I use? Soulfrost? or +40 Spell Damage? While the soulfrost gives me an extra 12 shadow damage, obviously... I use immolate in my rotation, so which is greater: +40 shadow, +40 fire or +52 shadow Most of the time I am spamming SBs, but is the +12 going to increase my dps over the +40 fire to my immolate? 40 seems like quite a lot. | ||||||||||||
| #1305 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | filthlord |
Hey guys.. i notice you say partial resists are estimated to be 6 percent on bosses.
I have been recording partials for 4 warlocks dps on bosses in BT and Hyjal for about 4 months now. It has been a very consistant 15 percent partial resist for around 3 percent dmg mitigation all locks all bosses for many many fights. Curse of shadows always up. Any info on how someone figured 6 percent? | ||||||||||||
| #1306 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Stran |
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| #1307 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
Yeah Stran is right on.
Once you reach a gear point (T6), Immolate is a decrease in DPS and RaidISB/DPS, so it isnt even worth to cast. Quick answer for you. If you are going to use that weapon for a very long time, say it is the Leo sword or an S3 weapon, then I'd put Soulfrost on it. | ||||||||||||
| #1308 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | gunit12 |
I'm not to T6 yet, is it the 4-piece bonus that makes immolate obsolete? I've been topping the meters on the Vashj fight using immolate so I think its working well for me atm... although the only 25 man drop I have is the Cowl of the Grand Engineer.
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| #1309 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
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Vashj is not a DPS fight, and your DPS output is heavily dependent on what your job is, and your luck on charges, p2 jobs, and general p3 stuff. If I'm doing Elem, I have 100% DPS time, and I'm very hard to beat 2-3 shotting the elems. If I'm on striders, my dps is much lower as the threat cap isn't there, plus movement reduces dps time. P3 you can get rooted OOR. P1 you can waste a good deal of time moving for static charge. But, to your question, yes, t6 bonus is that good. But, even at t5 level, I find immo questionable unless movement is involved. Faster mana usage, and fewer debuffs to take advantage of. | ||||||||||||
| #1310 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
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Like they said above Vashj is not a DPS fight at all. Also, #1 DPS in your guild is great, but doesnt mean you cant be 2-4% better ! Keep up the good work but grab the spreadsheet and throw your data in there and play with the spell rotations, find the best one for your gear ATM. | ||||||||||||
| #1311 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wraithscythe |
What amount of crit does a Affliction lock need? I've heard 20% but is that non talented or talented.
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| #1312 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pentamorfi |
Don't worry about crit. Get your spell hit capped, grab as much +damage as possible, and crit will come by itself through better gear.
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| #1313 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wraithscythe |
I am hit capped and I'm in full T5 with some T6 pieces thrown in.
203 Hit rating 23.99% talented crit chance 1181 shadow damage with fel armor up | ||||||||||||
| #1314 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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| #1315 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras | |||||||||||||
| #1316 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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I imagine early on someone thought that 20% from gear and 5% from talents gives ISB a near perfect uptime and the number has managed to survive to now... but really every stat plays a factor continuously (aside from hit) along all gear levels. The spreadsheet can be manipulated to show you almost every scenario and you can see for yourself what gear is best and when respeccing is likely to increase/lower your damage output. Also you might just try doing an extra hour of farming and respec for a night/week! See if you like the build more or if your needle moves at all. | ||||||||||||
| #1317 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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Even as 21/40, shadow damage is still the best way to increase your DPS (again assuming you stay hit capped) so you should definitely do some re-gemming. | ||||||||||||
| #1318 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | genchaos55 |
Your opinions and thoughts please.
First let me say that this is an extremely helpful site and is much appreciated.
I have been trying to find more information about the 40/0/21 spec. char: The World of Warcraft Armory spec : WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator i realize it is a bit of an odd spec in that it has improved dots as well as high crit SB's. the idea was to have at least one lock with this spec to keep ISB up at all times, amongst other advantages. I tend to out dps most of the raid and am in at least the top 5 fairly consistently. This is especially true for long fights and fights with no aggro table, IE alar. this is even with my crappy gear. basically, i am wondering what you guys think about this build and if there is a better direction to go gear wise or a better suited build. i was going for a build that was a nice mix of good quick dmg as well as good duration fighting. the only thing that has been a slight challenge is the high aggro from crit'ing every 4th SB. Thus far it has not been much of a problem. also, 6k+ SB crits are pretty cool and not super uncommon in raids. lastly, should i bother upping my +hit, or is it about right with the suppression? i think i'm only a few off, i wasn't sure if it was worth replacing a socketor something. any information y'all could provide would be greatly appreciated. Last edited by genchaos55 : 02/05/08 at 7:43 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1319 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If you actually bother to look at the spreadsheet you'll easily see shadow embrace+ruin specs are not viable until very high gear levels (generally 4/5 T6 and/or gear with similar stats). If you want to be an imp/SE-bitch you should be full affliction (43/0/17 with last point either in CoEx, improved imp or 35% pushback protection).
Since destruction scales better than affliction with every stat in the game (as in, the dps increase for 1 spell dmg, 1 crit rating, 1 hit rating and 1 spell haste rating are all bigger for destruction than affliction) the crit chance you "need" for destruction to outdps affliction will depend on your other stats - the more spell damage/hit/haste you have the less crit is required to make destruction beat affliction. Then again I've yet to see anyone who actually bothered to pick up reasonable gear for both specs that would do more DPS as affliction than destruction. | ||||||||||||
| #1320 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Update: 15% for around 3% seems a fair enough estimate. Compendium updated. Additional information welcome. Last edited by Arelenda : 02/05/08 at 8:12 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1321 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Note that the chnace for partial resist is rather noticeable, but at the end since it only resists 25% of the damage most of the times it actually resists, the overall damage reduction seems to end up as ~5%.
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| #1322 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
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| #1323 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
Sorry to bring this back up again : Spellhaste for affliction.
I have checked latest leulier with the implementation of spellhaste for 2.4 patch. It seems that that spellhaste at my level roughly equals 1 spelldamage when Im raidbuffed, the value of spelldamage varies from 1,02 per point to 1,09. Considering that spellhaste is probably cheaper budgetted, it seems like the way to go ? Example : Bracers of nimble thought suddenly becomes truly awesome compared to any other bracer available in slot at the moment. My raidbuffed stats : 1550 shadowdamage ( with 10 stacks of darkmoonfaire up ) , 22% crit ( although Im going to lose some in favor of haste ofc ). I intend to go 4 piece tier 6 , Zuljin neck ( maybe not that much better compared to RoS neck, but I like items with stats over statless items as warlock ) , bracers of nimble thought, mojo boots from ZA seems like a very nice upgrade from FSW boots considering this. Also the ring of trash from BT with spellhaste seems unrivaled compared to any other ring ? Anyone else played with the leulier sheet with the haste changes for affliction dps ? Anyone else have any other item that seems to become very very powerfull under the assumption of 1 haste equals 1 spelldamage ? Seems not worth breaking 4 piece tier 6 for though. | ||||||||||||
| #1324 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Kalle |
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Data from BT will be skewed because of the chromatic resistance aura from the illidari council's paladin. EDIT: I don't know how you recorded your values, but if you used WWS, you might find this post interesting. Last edited by Kalle : 02/06/08 at 5:29 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1325 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bogeywoman |
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| #1326 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Those mobs are lvl72 at the highest, though, which means you'll be hit capped with 5% hit from gear. Considering even affliction warlocks should have minimum 6% for bosses (becuase under that hit is actually the best stat to get as your affliction spells also become uncapped), and how trivial it is to have such a low minimum required +hit, I wouldn't get 16% hit just to soulshatter on trash - it simply provides 0 benefit.
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| #1327 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1328 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
Does anyone have any further insight into crit % vs lvl 73 mobs, and how it relates to what you see in the character screen?
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| #1329 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bogeywoman |
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| #1330 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spline |
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| #1331 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Humanwarlock |
Should a destruction specced warlock be drinking mana potions or destruction potions for max dps? I think I heard somewhere that the time gained from not having to lifetap as often when chainchugging mana pots increases dps more than chainchugging destro pots would.
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| #1332 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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In general: if you need to lifetap when you could have been dealing damage, mana pots will win. You might be able to make a destro-pot win if you stacked it on top of heroism and skull of gul'dan, though. | ||||||||||||
| #1333 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Also any fight with movement will allow you to lifetap with 0 dps loss, making destro potions better if you move often enough. Just carry both mana and destruction potions and use whichever suits the fight better. But yeah according to the spreadsheet if you're just standing and nuking mana pots win.
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| #1334 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Moghedian |
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| #1335 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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Mana pots would also generate some extra threat, something to consider if you are closely riding the line. | ||||||||||||
| #1336 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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Last edited by Trickykid : 02/06/08 at 8:47 PM. Reason: Removed incorrect assumption. | ||||||||||||
| #1337 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1338 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
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Just don't forget what other mana users learned long ago: use your pot cooldown early so that it's up again sooner in the fight. | ||||||||||||
| #1339 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
With the amount of raid healing done on most bosses these days I'd much rather use mana pots, but again we rarely have less than 7 healers out of which 2 resto sham, 1-2 resto druids, 2-4 CoH priests (one specced CoH when someone suggested they try then all of them followed ... never seen spi in a 25 man ever since ), fill up with palas.
But unless you're in a double spriest group destro pots won't come close to mana pots. For healing there's 3xHealthstone, and ~1700 heal death coil and soul leech which can give some very nice healing when lucky (close to 4k a pop max). | ||||||||||||
| #1340 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Blackranger |
Greetings,
I know these patch-notes are not confirmed yet, but I thought it'd be still interesting to see the numbers for these changes. ![]()
This seems more like a shadowpriest nerf than a lock nerf to me. Is there anyone with enough knowledge of math to do the numbers for this? | ||||||||||||
| #1341 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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If this were to happen, affliction locks and shadow priests would take a very hard hit (which I estimate at 5% and 7%, respectively), destro locks will probably take a somewhat lower hit in personal damage (estimated at 3%), and raid damage would suffer. It is nowhere near a buff to any class or spec involved, unless you're obsessed by your own personal damage to the point where you would deliberately lower other people's dps to make sure you win on the meter. It is definitely not a good idea. If anything needs nerfing, it's not shadow priest or affliction dps. Disclaimer: these are rough estimates, based on ISB data from our last raid. Given how finicky ISB is, they might be off a bit. But I'm 100% sure about my conclusion. Last edited by Arelenda : 02/07/08 at 8:27 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1342 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Blackranger |
That's why I said: This seems more like a shadowpriest nerf than a lock nerf to me.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, I just wanted to know how much it's an actual destro lock nerf. | ||||||||||||
| #1343 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Might be 0, might even be a slight buff (well, if you compare to current without a spriest in group, ~1%), might be a slight nerf (~1%). But you will see wild variations in dps due to crit streaks added to current crit% variations. I mean in theory you'd have it at 100% uptime anytime you go over 25% crit if crits were evenly spread and you always got exact crit rates .
Unless you didn't use spriests/affli locks this won't be a nerf. Life Tap would, so would regen loss from spriests, so would uptime loss for affli. But hey, fire was already close to shadow, a nice buff to coefficient and we'll all turn from skull missile shooting monkeys to ground burning fire shooting ones . Though they better buff spriests/affliction if they do this. Fortunately if these changes do show up on PTR at some point there will be plenty of people and numbers to show their effects as possibly Sunwell could even be farmed on PTR by the time it goes live. And there's always Rage right there to do some dps testing so until some official explanations show up, no need to worry. | ||||||||||||
| #1344 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pintofbrew |
No, you will not have 100% uptime with 25% crit, particularly in theory. Casting four spells at 25% crit does not mean you have 4*25=100% chance to refresh your ISB.
The chance you have to refresh it is in fact 1-(0.75^3)=69.4%. Even with 99% crit you wouldn't have a guaranteed refresh. I'm curious how while you gentlemen noticed "ISB narf" none of you noticed in the same alleged notes "Incinerate coef. incerased". Bearing in mind 0.21.40 imp-saccing benefits from delicious talents like Emberstorm, and imp. Scorch combined with Misery is 20% which is signifficantly ahead than Shadow Weaving+Misery at 15%. We all know how kinky percentile increments are... I can't wait till we start considering maledicted CoE as a DPS optimizer. | ||||||||||||
| #1345 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
You said:
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I mean in theory you'd have it at 100% uptime anytime you go over 25% crit if crits were evenly spread and you always got exact crit rates. You said: ![]()
But hey, fire was already close to shadow, a nice buff to coefficient and we'll all turn from skull missile shooting monkeys to ground burning fire shooting ones. New stuff: And at this point Fire, even before ISB is accounted for is about 4% behind shadow. Removing ISB raid buff certainly makes fire not only viable but with a coefficient increase of at least 5-10% even better (it's what, 61-62 mana cheaper than SB with Cataclysm on?). Inci starts at 85%, SB at 102% with S&F ... big difference here. From crappy calc it would seem they need to bring Inci from 71% base to 80% to be slightly under SB at scaling, not damage/cast but that's prolly offset by the mana cost. It's been a long time since we last had an affliction warlock in raid, can't even remember, but I always give mages CoE, if only just to delay my "always at the start of fights 9k-10k crit streaks that always force me to soulshatter therefore doing nothing for a large part of the fight". Plus they whine, big time, not a big as spriests for locks to get more crit though . Visit to the opthamologist required or just skipping what you don't want to read? :P Last edited by dakalro : 02/07/08 at 10:41 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1346 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pentamorfi |
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| #1347 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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I can only conclude that destro pots can never be better if you ever lifetap when you could nuke otherwise; Heroism and Skull don't double your damage. Last edited by Krazen : 02/07/08 at 12:04 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1348 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Stran |
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| #1349 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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2. Going off on a tangent, if you are forced to do nothing for some period of time post-soulshatter then the optimal play would have been to wait longer to soulshatter and move the do-nothing period towards the start of the fight. | ||||||||||||
| #1350 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Doing some quick numbers with reasonable raids and ~25-30% crit warlock, the personal DPS gained by ISB will be pretty damn close to what it is now. You'll have more personal ISB time but gain less damage from it, and if you do the math you'll see that your dps doesn't really change with this patch change.
So what does it really do? Well first thing it makes modeling so much easier ISB uptime will be 1-(1-crit)^4 for spamming shadowbolts continuously (slightly less if you have to move when ISB charges are up, and say, only get 3 shadowbolts during those 12 seconds). Shadow priests will be losing massive DPS with such a change. In my normal raid ISB should be up 50-60% of the time which would mean a 10-12% DPS loss to shadow priests. For affliction warlocks' personal dps it'll really depend on their personal crit. Since they often have 12 second intervals where less than 4 shadowbolts are being cast, yet damage is still being dealt via DoTs, calculating ISB uptime becomes a bit complicated, and the DPS increase from it even more complicated. No longer should you be able to make the approximation of "dps increase = uptime * 0.2" although it might still be reasonable close - it needs more looking into. This does give a side-effect buff to affliction as destruction warlocks no longer bring any increase to raid dps over affliction aside from their personal dps, while affliction brings malediction. Right now the ISB increase from going from aff to destro actually increases raid dps a bit more than malediction would, making affliction pretty much a purely "imp+SE bitch". So while I'm not sure how the personal dps of affliction warlocks will change with this (although I am sure that wether it's an increase or decrease depends on the affliction warlock's crit chance), affliction warlocks will at least increase the DPS of other shadow users better than destruction warlocks would. Overall I would expect raid dps to go down if such a change would be implemented, even before taking into account the secondary effect the lower regen shadow priests would have. | ||||||||||||
| #1351 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ SSJones |
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The extra mana returns returns from an extra 2.7% shadow damage is also probably minimal. An extra 37.8 DPS to your shadow priest if they are running 1400 DPS. So an extra 9.45 MP5 for their group. I believe that's accurate? Edit: Forgot to mention.. I believe 10,000 shadow/arcane DPS as a raid is a really high number, but that is guesswork. | ||||||||||||
| #1352 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Limeball |
The Shadow Bolt Debuff
It's very important to keep the Improved Shadow Bolt Debuff (ISB) up as much as possible, since it provides 20% extra shadow damage to the entire raid while it is active. (including dots - this is a common misconception). Destruction warlocks consequently put a higher value on crit rating than other builds do, since it helps with ISB uptime..
Is that tru? I only noticed me getting the buff in raids | ||||||||||||
| #1353 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1354 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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The extra regen gives my baseline ~1550 dps destruction warlock ~3 more dps. Granted it's a secondary effect and isn't big but it's there and should be taken into account if your affliciton dps + malediction dps are close under the destruction dps. Note that the DPS difference I get currently between my affliction setup and destruction setup on lieuler is ~50 dps with equal group buffs, and lose additional ~150dps by moving to the tank group. However if you're considering switching your aff lock to destro assuming the aff lock is in the tank group is flawed - as if you want an imp in the tank group you want an affliction warlock regardless of his dps (unless he can't even beat a destro lock running an imp in the tank group... which realistically won't ever happen as far as I know). And if you want imp you probably want shadow embrace even more (as it's actually more useful than imp more often than not, so if you find imp important you definitely find shadow embrace important). At the end such a change, just like I said, would make destruction warlocks add 0 raid dps over affliction while affliction warlocks will add raid dps, so there will be a breakpoint where affliction will add more raid dps than destruction. Where that breakpoint is depends on a lot of things, including how the change would affect the affliction warlock's personal dps. | ||||||||||||
| #1355 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Kyth |
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(According to your guild forums your guild has only just downed Vashj, and according to your info here your Paladin is your main, so I'm suspecting your lock is in the gear where affliction is far far stronger than the crit-based T5/T6 gear that people are usually talking about.) | ||||||||||||
| #1356 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Lock is at the gear that gives ~1500dps on lieuler's, basically ~t5 level, so yeah it's not as big of a dps drop as the people in full T6 that have everything in the game, but the bottom line is there is a breakpoint somewhere in between wher the personal dps starts to beat malediction. Before that there was no breakpoint - if your gear didn't totally suck your ISB contribution would beat the malediction contribution to the raid, and thus affliction would always drop raid dps on top of the personal dps. If this change is to happen, it makes affliction actually have a realistic point where it's worth having, while currently the only point where affliction is worth having is at a gear level of someone who probably doesn't even know how to cast DoTs properly.
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| #1357 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
Affliction not worth having? In my opinion Malediction is just a bonus your Affliction Warlock gives the raid, after contributing progression-essential talents like Shadow Embrace and Imp, so Malediction vs Destro is an academic discussion. If you don't need SE/Imp, then you have TBC on farm anyway.
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| #1358 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I never said not worth having, I said won't increase raid DPS. There's a difference.
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| #1359 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vondem |
I'm curious to see how exactly a destro warlock is to socket their gear. Right now I've got t6 robe/gloves/helm and around 30% destro crit, fully hit capped, with ~1300 shadow damage.
I'm eventually getting t6 shoulders for 4 piece, Tempest of Chaos (ONCE IT FINALLY DROPS =\), leggings of channeled elements, and the slippers of the seacaller (my boots are the most terrible boots out there with random heroic gems, it is only temporary) With those pieces I'll be at around 32% destro crit with over 1400 shadow damage while staying hit capped. I have looked up many warlocks in hope to get an answer on how to socket my gear, +12 spell damage gems vs +5 crit 6 damage gems. Right now I have a majority of my gear socketed with +12 spell damage gems, as I see many end-game destro locks with those gems in almost every socket in their gear. The way I looked at it was if I socketed with 5 crit 6 damage gems, i would gain around 1.4 to about 2% crit over losing a bit of spell damage, but as this spec on a 25 man raid boss with shadow priests, a malediction lock with CoS, t6 4 piece, Imp shadow bolt, as well as the talents in shadow and flame/demo sac, your spell damage scales a lot. (I'm not sure how they work, but if they're additive, it will be around 89% extra shadow bolt damage) If the talents/debuffs scale like this, that would mean that a 12 spell damage gem = virtually 22.68 spell damage and a 5 crit (.23%) 6 spell damage gem = virtually 5 crit rating (.23%) and 11.34 spell damage I was wondering if anyone can clear this up for me. Thank you guys. | ||||||||||||
| #1360 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
http://www.leulier.com/ should have all the answers. Overall with any realistic raid 12 damage gems win on total raid dps, although not by a huge margin, as 1 crit rating is more or less equal to 1 spell dmg, even slightly above it.
Last edited by galzohar : 02/08/08 at 9:13 PM. Reason: link fixed, however it does show on the main post!!!! | ||||||||||||
| #1361 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Johnneke |
For my own gem choices I always try to get the socket bonus with the orange crit/dmg and dmg/stam purple gems. This mainly since on highend gear the socket bonus is mostly worth it.
What I do miss here and frankly on alot of places is that Screech (Owl/Bat hunter pet ability) stacks with demo shout. Since the AP of a raid boss is around ~350 having a hunter with a owl or bat in your raid will bring the boss its attack power to 0 even when you have CoR up, meaning CoR can be safely used on every raid boss where you can keep the screech and demo shout debuff active on the boss. | ||||||||||||
| #1362 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vondem |
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| #1363 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Most yellow/blue items seem to have a 4 dmg socket bonus. So you're effectively losing a bit under 7 spell dmg if you're taking crit as slightly above dmg to gain 4 dmg and 7 stamina. Not really a tradeoff I'd be willing to make unless my guild absolutely cannot supply spinels *or* if I need the blue gem to activate the meta.
yellow/yellow/blue items seem to have 5 dmg socket bonus which is about the same tradeoff as the yellow/blue items. Use the spreadsheet and/or similar logic to figure out items socketed differently... | ||||||||||||
| #1364 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Johnneke |
Here is the post I made for my old guild forum a while back for locks that are interested in it.
What we know! Maximum Attack Power Reduction on Raid Bosses: 340AP Roar, Demoralizing Shout & Curse of Weakness DONT Stack Screech (Owl/Bat Hunter Pet) is the ONLY AP Reducement Ability that does stack with the above Attack Power Reduction from Roar: 240AP Attack Power Reduction from Demoralizing Shout 0/5: 300AP Attack Power Reduction from Demoralizing Shout 2/5: 348AP Attack Power Reduction from Demoralizing Shout 5/5: 420AP Attack Power Reduction from Curse of Weakness 0/2: 350AP Attack Power Reduction from Screech (Rank 5): 210AP Attack Power Increase from Curse of Recklessness: 135AP What can we make from this! A Raid Boss Without Curse of Recklessness has: 340AP - Debuffed with 0/5 Demoralizing Shout: 40AP - Debuffed with 2/5 Demoralizing Shout: 0AP - Debuffed with 5/5 Demoralizing Shout: 0AP - Debuffed with Roar: 100AP - Debuffed with 0/2 Curse of Weakness: 0AP A Raid Boss with the Debuff Curse of Recklessness has: 475AP - Debuffed with 0/5 Demoralizing Shout: 165AP (With Screech: 0AP) - Debuffed with 2/5 Demoralizing Shout: 117AP (With Screech: 0AP) - Debuffed with 5/5 Demoralizing Shout: 55AP (With Screech: 0AP) - Debuffed with Roar: 235AP (With Screech: 20AP) - Debuffed with 0/2 Curse of Weakness: 125AP (With Screech: 0AP) Synopsis - When we have a hunter with a Owl or Bat pet with Screech (Rank 5) Curse of Recklessness can be used safely on ALL bosses while still getting the MAXIMUM Attack Power Reduction Possible (Exempt: Roar) - When we do NOT have a hunter with a Owl or Bat pet with Screech (Rank 5) Curse of Recklessness can be used safely on most bosses depending on if we have a warrior with 5/5 imp ds or not. Bosses we do NOT want to use CoR on currently are: Azgalor, Mother Shahraz and Illidan, Reliquary of Sould (Phase 1). Resources: Wowhead: NOM NOM NOM A brief primer on Attack Power - TheorySpot Demoralizing shout et al. Demoralizing Shout - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft All above information can be found through these and other various resources. Last edited by Johnneke : 02/08/08 at 9:09 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1365 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vondem |
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Edit: Nevermind, I found a working link, you mispelled lieulier lol. Thank you though. | ||||||||||||
| #1366 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | oscredwin |
New topic: How good are the new dawnstones(8 spell haste rating) and topazes(5 spelldamage and 4 haste rating) with haste? Aside from the raw data that the spreadsheets and shadowseer give us, are they better then runed living rubies? runed crimson spinels? was i stupid for buying out all the dawnstones i could at 30g a pop?
It seems that the Quick dawnstone is the new runed living ruby, at least for destruction. | ||||||||||||
| #1367 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
What I wonder is how to model lieuler's to adjust haste to affect the GCD of lifetapping. Although you can simply calculate 15.7 haste rating = 1% DPS increase for destruction shadowbolt spamming.
Scratch that, X% dps in fact causes more than X% increase in lifetapping: mana consumption = regen + lifetapping And therefore: (x>1) x*mana consumption =/= regen + x*lifetapping x*mana consumption = regen + y*lifetapping (y>x) So the more regen you have the less % dps increase per haste rating you'll get... but still do more # DPS per haste rating you'll get. The idea is that with more regen haste multiplies a smaller portion of what allows you do to damage (doesn't multiply your regen! only your lifetapping) but your damage that does get multiplied is bigger to start with which more than makes up for it, so more regen means you'll see less %dps and more #dps per haset rating. If you're going to spinel anything in the near future, I would wait to see the finalized patch notes first! Last edited by galzohar : 02/09/08 at 3:58 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1368 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
I doubt they are adding "epic" versions of the new haste cuts to BT, so 12 damage is still king.
However, the haste/damage topaz is better for 21/40 than Runed with the new GCD reduction. Note the patch is a while aways. | ||||||||||||
| #1369 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Oh I didn't notice it didn't include the epic version, although you may never know.
But yeah 5 damage 4 haste is definitely the best non-epic gem for destruction. | ||||||||||||
| #1370 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | blecap |
Hi guys i just downloaded an addon call " ItemValue" basically its to calculate the item value of the gear so as to select the best gear. Therefore i've search the forum and can't seem to find the gear formula to put it into the addon. Some help will be appreciated =p thanks!
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| #1371 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Faldrath |
Interesting development, the 8-piece T6... now demo locks will be able to keep 2T5 and still get 4T6, should make them more efficient. And I almost wonder if someone will try to keep 2T4 and 4T6 to get the two best set bonuses.
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| #1372 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Cuddle |
If I were (which I am) a casual PvE raider with no plans on ever seeing MH/BT before the next expansion how would I value haste rating as a warlock with the new 2.4 change incoming?
The thing is that with the "new" badge rewards, ZA and Sunwell 5-man drops and factionrewards I am seeing an increase in items with spell haste on them. As a hit capped (w/o suppression) affliction warlock (42/2/17) I'm feeling kind of content with chasing more +damage and the occational +crit boost (I have an abyssmal 12% crit but 1200 shadowdmg) and I'm worried that spell haste will mess up my cast cycle (UA, Corr, Curse, Immo, SL, SB-spam) but I'm even more worried that I miss out on a very important stat. Is spell haste of spellhit-ish importance for raiding and something I should strive towards and perhaps even sacrifice +dmg for? SB is after all almost 50% of my damage output. So my first question is, as a warlock just starting slow progress into SSC/TK should I sacrifice spelldamage for spellhaste? - EDIT: This has already been partially answered in this thread. I'd appreciate some further input though. My second questsion: I've always thought that 1000+ dmg, hit capped and 20%+ crit would be some kind of treshhold before I starting trying destro in raid. Now that spell haste has become more accessible outside of MH/BT should I change this treshhold in any way to incorporate spellhaste as a possible substitute for some dmg or crit? (It's no easy thing to reach 1000dmg, 20%crit and hitcap with loot from Kara/ZA/Maggy/Gruul and heroics, believe me., so I'm hoping that the addition of easy access spell haste will make destro valid sooner) I'm horrible with theorycrafting so I don't know if there is anyway to theoretically check the importance of spell haste after 2.4 but perhaps someone with alot of theory experience could make an estimate. /Cuddle Last edited by Cuddle : 02/10/08 at 12:11 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1373 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | fip |
Cuddle, your first question depends on spec. Since you are currently Affliction I will answer with a solid: it depends. Are you Affliction with Ruin or Affliction with UA? If you are UA then the answer is: haste is still not good for you. Your instant dots will go on the target slightly more quickly with a lowered GCD and sure, some haste will make your bolts go faster, but you won't gain as much benefit from it as more +dmg. If you have Ruin instead of UA however (which is a better choice for Affliction at higher gear levels) then you will want some haste because I have seen 1300 dps parses of a Warlock in t6, spec'd affliction, but really wearing destro gear and something like 60% of his dmg was Shadowbolts. Even when I was spec'd affliction in t4, 40-50% of my damage was still from Shadowbolts. Haste will always be useful, you just don't need to aim for it if you're UA.
The only comment I would make about your 2nd question is that the 20% crit is dependent on the other Warlocks in your raid, namely: what is the ISB uptime for your guild? In my guild we will stack 4-5 Destro warlocks into a raid and our ISB uptime is something close to 90%. I was therefore able to go Destro prior to 20% crit because I was essentially able to mooch off of them. Why not just go Destro for a week? Does your guild use WWS or at least have some form of "reliable" damage meter that is tracked and watched? Just let the guild know that you are trying it for a week and want to see how it goes, then compare your results to your affliction dps. As a general rule of thumb from theorycrafting I did, your Destro dps needs to be at least +250 from your affliction dps for it to be worth the swap. That is going purely off Malediction and a shadow-heavy raid. | ||||||||||||
| #1374 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | fip |
Personally I'm not anywhere near the GCD with my Shadowbolts, so going purely off your "with the new GCD reduction" comment, how does reducing the GCD help destro at all? GCD reduction is being put in place to help all those classes that use instants, such as the affliction spec. Unless you have so much haste that your bolts are dropping below GCD? If so, how much haste is that...
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| #1375 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison | |||||||||||||
| #1376 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
I've been looking at the new items, upgrading my gear to the new stuff yields roughly 125 dmg, 20 crit, 125 haste, but -30 hit, still pretty good! Thats about 250 dps gain.
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| #1377 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
With 10-15% of the time spent lifetapping, haste will be exactly 10-15% more effective than it is now. That's not a big change, but it's nice, and depending on your current stats, can turn haste from being worse than spell damage per itemization point to better - which only really matters for gem choices and even there this change isn't a major factor - all it could mean is that haste gems are slightly better than damage gems instead of slightly worse (if at all).
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| #1378 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
Indeed, if they put a 6dmg/5haste gem in the game, it may be worth socketing those instead of spinels for socket bonuses.
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| #1379 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If a socket bonus is good enough for 6 dmg 5 haste, it's probably also good enough for the slightly inferior 6 dmg 5 crit gem. However it seems most yellow socket bonuses also require a blue which makes them worthless as 6 dmg loss is already too much.
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| #1380 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
The new caster gear has red and yellow sockets, so the devs finally see that dps generally don't like blue gems (just the 2 blue to get the meta), however healers enjoy blue gems (Royal).
With the yellow and red sockets, it should be worth it to meet the socket bonus. | ||||||||||||
| #1381 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sardaukar |
It seems a lot of the new gear is devoid of spell hit in favor of crit/haste. While great, is anyone planning on picking up some gear with hit they had not planned on to make sure they have enough? For example, I had not planed on getting Translucent Spellthread Neck since I have the Kael neck and didn't really *need* the hit, but now I'm thinking I may try to get that. I could see someone dropping Vestaments of the Seawitch for the new Sunfire crafted robes, Archi sword for the new dagger and a few other trades and suddenly being 30 spell hit under cap instead of 30 over.
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| #1382 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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The Sea Witch Robes are pretty close to the Ghostly Hatred Robes (you trade 27 haste and 13 damage for 27 hit), but theyre inferior to the crafted ones. | ||||||||||||
| #1383 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lerker |
With the release of the new gear for 2.4, I figured I'd come out of hiding and post rather than /troll the forums.
I've noticed a severe lack of +spell hit rating on 2.4 gear in favor of more haste and crit rating. With destro being quite hit reliant because of the high cap required (compared to other specs and classes) I'm wondering if this will impact destro DPS much, or if at all? I'm only in SSC / TK at the moment, so I don't quite have BT/Hyjal gear to know quite how much +hit I'll be looking at nor how much I'll be dropping. Haven't really seen any talk about this the last few posts. Edit: Just as I post a few posts on this topic are above me I missed | ||||||||||||
| #1384 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
Hit is still a very important stat, so that means some items become more powerful (bracers/off-hand from Akama and spell hit wand from Bloodboil) in Sunwell than they are now.
Also it further solidifies some items like Skull and Spellthread Neck as best in-game. | ||||||||||||
| #1385 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sardaukar |
Especially since there appears to be a lack of jewelery in Sunwell. I don't think I saw a single +damage caster ring or neck in the loot list?
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| #1386 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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update: for clarity: I'm currently at 220 hit rating, and have an elemental shaman in my group most of the time. it's a tremendous waste of stats, but I don't have replacement gear yet, been unlucky with drops lately. Last edited by Arelenda : 02/12/08 at 11:46 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1387 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lerker |
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Link to MMO Champ Image | ||||||||||||
| #1388 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sardaukar |
The point of his post is that the sunwell largely has no hit on it at all. Start swapping out your hyjal/bt loot with +hit for sunwell loot with no +hit and its possible that you may suddenly need to balance gear to keep your cap. Some of the items mentioned that are currently merely good because the hit on them isn't really needed (Ring of Captured Storms comes to mind) might become more important when you are trying to adjust for losing lots of hit.
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| #1389 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
So you gem for hit. It simply shifts your optimum gem choice, and your optimal choice of gear a little. [Mana Attuned Band] (which isn't far off from best in game) is suddenly a lot more attractive than [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] for example, and of course there's the new JC ring. You have to re-evaluate gear everytime a new instance comes out, that's nothing new.
Edit: Long story short, i don't see how it really affects DPS. Every stat has its value, and as long as those items are upgrades despite the lack of hit, and if you can make up the hit in other slots or through gems without too much trouble, you're still gaining DPS. Last edited by Suggestive : 02/12/08 at 12:26 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1390 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Mezmaron |
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| #1391 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
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All you are losing is like 10 stam/int for 30 spirit, it is a wash either way. | ||||||||||||
| #1392 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
The crit gained by +10 int is about as much of a dps increase as 30 spirit with improved divine spirit for destruction.
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| #1393 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1394 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Pstar |
On the front post, it says crits with ruin and a chaotic skyfire will be 209%. Shouldn't it be 206%? Untalented crit strike bonus is 50%, increase that bonus by 100% to make it +100% or 200% of normal, increase the 200% crit by 3% to get 206%.... am I crazy?
Edit: No, Bliz just uses some intergalactic math I guess.... I found this explanation off wowhead to be slightly more illuminating: For Warlocks your crit is 209% (tested) with this gem and the math that blizzard uses to determine this is as follows... With Ruin your Critical strike Damage bonus is 100% more than what your critical strikes are without it, so you take the Damage increase from a critical strike and multiply it by 2. Now the gem says 3% increased critical damage, which doesn't mean +3% bonus damage it means 3% more total, so you take the damage a critical strike would do and then add 3% to that value. Thus 150% x 1.03 = 154.5% (Total damage from a crit with this gem but without ruin) 154.5% - 100% = 54.5% (Bonus damage from a crit with this gem but without ruin) 54.5% X 2 = 109% (bonus damage with ruin and gem) 100%+109% = 209% (damage done by a critical with gem and ruin) Last edited by Pstar : 02/12/08 at 2:18 AM. Reason: oh | ||||||||||||
| #1395 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vazu |
With the influx of gear heavy in haste and low or lacking completely in hit, I wonder where Eye of Magtheridon ranks. I'm almost always in a caster group with a Draenei. Our raid is crammed with them. Both of our holy Priests, four Shaman, and one Paladin are Draenei. Because of this, and how our groups are setup, I frequently benefit from their 1% spell hit racial. According to this link, Magtheridon's Eye ranks #4 overall for 0/21/40. I see it's value going up substantially. A way for me to gear up in haste and down to 11% in spell hit rating. I want one more than ever now, after a glimpse of Sunwell itemization.
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| #1396 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
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| #1397 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Kyth |
Don't forget that dropping spellhit increases the chance of a soulshatter resist as well.
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| #1398 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vazu |
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I'm just saying, from the drops I've seen so far, maybe the trinket has a place now. Edit: The poster above mentioning Soulshatter resists is the biggest downfall of Magtheridon's Eye for sure. | ||||||||||||
| #1399 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
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To your question "Are you wearing a specific piece of loot because you need it to reach the cap, even though you know there's a higher overall DPS drop in it's place?" - yeah, I'm wearing Belt of Blasting instead of Anetheron's Noose. Assuming I'm hitcapped, the noose has slightly more spell dmg and crit, so is higher dps. But hey - all that spell hit on the belt means I can wear a different item elsewhere, and gain much more while remaining hit capped. As an addendum, I would personally say that the biggest downside to Mag's Eye is that it gives less dps than two-three other more easily available trinkets (Icon, Darkmoon:Crusade and HSH). Edit: maybe I'm arguing something that you're not necessarily disagreeing with. If you want to stack haste, dmg and crit and ignore hit, who am I to stop you? If that's what will make the game more fun for you then go for it. if you want to know that you're doing the best dps you can do, though, staying at 202 hit is massively important. Last edited by Spoonman : 02/12/08 at 5:40 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1400 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
Like previous posters have said, the main difference is going to be in slots where an item is only an upgrade because the hit you gain from another item is wasted. For example, the council cloak is only better DPS-wise than the Nethervoid Cloak if you are at 202 hit and gaining nothing from the hit. With what we've seen from 2.4 so far, I can't imagine wanting the council cloak over the Nethervoid anymore - theres so many awesome damage/haste/crit pieces in other slots. Also, the 2x RoAK route will probably not be optimal anymore since the Ring of Captured Storms and Mana Attuned Band are going to be places where you can pick up the extra hit you might need without losing much in the damage/crit/haste departments.
I would also think this puts the Tempest of Chaos/Chronicle combo substantially ahead of the Illidan staff, since the hit from the combo will allow you to use 2.4 gear that will more than make up for the loss of haste from the staff. Its going to be interesting to see if they implement epic versions of the haste gems, because a damage/haste epic gem could certainly make a run at replacing the +12 damage gems as the best option. | ||||||||||||
| #1401 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
A couple notes:
-Mana Attuned Band (ZA Timed Chest) and the new Jewel Crafting Ring (has this dropped for anyone yet?) seem like solid rings due to the hit that we'll all need. -I think my strategy will be to socket +12s in reds and 4d/5hit in yellows (noble topazes), until my gear is almost set and I can figure out how you'll reach the hit cap. -Bust out your Scryer Bloodgems =P Gul'Dan/Bloodgem will be a great trinket combo. -Tempest/Chronicle definately looks to be the best now, but remember you'll get a new weapon eventually, and possibly the haste offhand (dropped from Brutallus I think) | ||||||||||||
| #1402 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lanzoni |
I got this posted to me by a guild mate, it's about gemming T6 chest. Spinels vs "the rest"
Are these calculations correct? According to simulation craft you gain 0.760 per spell damage and 0.492 per crit rating (ignoring other shadow casters so your Imp.SB is not increasing as much if you are by yourself). 10crit + 12 spell + 6 spell + 5 spell + 7 stamina = 23 spell damage + 10 crit + 7 stamina = 22.4 dps + 7 stamina 36 spell damage = 27.36 dps Again from simulation craft, looking at Imp SB uptime with 2 shadow priests and 2 destruction warlocks, you have on 8% increased ImpSB uptime going from 200 to 300 rating and 4% increased ImpSB uptime gong from 300 to 400 crit rating. So lets assume you are going to see a 0.6% uptime increase at the 300 crit rating mark with 10 crit rating. 0.6% uptime at 20% damage increase is 0.12% damage increase overall for all shadow casters. We already assumed 4 shadow casters, say at 1250 dps which gives 5000k dps total. 0.12% of that is 6 dps. So the revised numbers look like this: 10crit + 12 spell + 6 spell + 5 spell + 7 stamina = 23 spell damage + 10 crit + 7 stamina = 22.4 dps + 7 stamina + 6 raid dps = 28.4 total dps + 7 stamina 36 spell damage = 27.36 dps | ||||||||||||
| #1403 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
Just a rough and very preliminary list of the interesting announced as-of-now 2.4 loot as far as warlocks are concerned:
Weapons: [Sunflare] Not much to say but wow, we can safely assume its probably from Kil'jaeden. [Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents] Intriguing because of the massive +hit, which could be useful in replacing the hit that is missing on a lot of the 2.4 gear. New T6 Pieces: [Bracers of the Malefic] Clearly a big upgrade over the previous best-in-slot (crafted BT bracers). Although the Akama hit bracers are looking more viable with the aforementioned lack of hit on the 2.4 gear we've seen so far. [Boots of the Malefic] Again, another clear-cut upgrade over the Naj boots. Between the Boots/Bracers it should be pretty easy to upgrade some of the weaker T6 pieces (chest/legs) while maintaining the 4pc. [Belt of the Malefic] The hit and haste are nice, but a damage downgrade from the BoB and the Noose. Crafted Pieces: [Sunfire Robe] Wow, this thing completely blows away the T6 robe/Vashj robes. Hard to imagine anything beating this out. [Sunfire Handwraps] Tons of damage and crit, but no hit or possible T6 bonus. [Pendant of Sunfire] Decent upgrade over the RoS neck, but with the lack of hit it may not be viable. [Loop of Forged Power] Very similar to the ZA ring, is a nice potential source of hit. [Annihilator Holo-Gogs] Tons of damage/crit and a penalty-free blue socket, worth considering for engineers. Sunwell Cloth Drops: [Leggings of Calamity] Ridiculous amounts of damage/crit/haste and nice sockets to boot, looks like a run away winner as best in slot legs to me. Misc. Drops [Wand of the Demonsoul] I personally think the two hit wands (Gurtogg/Solarian) are going to be better with all of the haste available elsewhere, but we'll see. 34 damage and 18 haste is nothing to laugh at on a wand. [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] Looks like a great trinket for affliction locks, pretty useless for destro locks. Its going to be interesting to see exactly how the mechanics of it work, and whether or not it will be able to beat out the HSH/DMC:C. I didn't include any of the "Raid Vendor" cloth dps gear, since it seems to be more geared towards shadow priest/mage gear with all of the spirit. The [Robes of Ghostly Hatred] are interesting as they are a clear upgrade over the T6/Vashj chests and it should take a while to have the necessary pattern/sunmotes drop to make the Sunfire chest (which will be in high demand). This is obviously far from final loot table since everything is still on the PTR and in very early stages, but just at first glance it looks like the best possible 4 piece combination would be the Bracers/Boots/Shoulders and either the Helm or the Belt. Possibly the gloves, if you end up needing the hit. Using the non-set [Sunfire Robe] and [Leggings of Calamity] seem like pretty obvious choices to me. Its also nice to see all the red sockets on the new caster gear. Of course, this is all just for fun as everything is very preliminary and as more drops are either discovered or changed all of this speculation will probably become moot. Last edited by Ammanas : 02/12/08 at 4:48 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1404 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Ludwig |
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Playing around with the new haste change of Leulier's spreadsheet with input stats of around 1500 spell damage, 30% crit, and 5% haste with 0/21/40, the following is what I got for the dps conversion per stat. 1 spell damage = 0.89 dps 1 crit rating = 0.89 dps 1 haste rating = 1.10 dps This would in turn give: 2x [Runed Crimson Spinel] 21.36 dps 2x Reckless Pyrestone (if it exists) 21.68 dps 2x Quick Lionseye (if it exists) 22 dps I calculated it in terms of 2 gems because Reckless (and Potent and Veiled as well), i.e. orange gems in general, have more "stat point" than their yellow gem counter part. This is why people advocated [Veiled Noble Topaz] over [Great Dawnstone] back in the day since [Noble Topaz] have 11 "stat point" over the Dawnstone's 10, assuming you'll be at 202 hit rating at the end of the day. In this model, 2x Quick Lionseye (20 "stat point" total) gives more dps than the 2x [Runed Crimson Spinel] (24 "stat point" total) and 2x Reckless Pyrestone (22 "stat point" total). This is all of course very speculative and theoretical and assumes full benefit from spell haste. Last edited by Ludwig : 02/12/08 at 4:55 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1405 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Knasen |
Yes, there is a big lack of spellhit on all the gear we have seen so far but since all sockets are red or yellow its not that hard to put in +hit gems there to compensate? At the same time different gems will be used so you arent forced to stand in queue for 3 months for a spinel.
I really hope a another trinket turns up with +dmg and spellhit, the gap between scryers bloodgem and the illidan trinket is kinda big:P. Turning a rare drop from best to indispensible feels kinda bad. Putting those rare trinkets on the BT-rep vendor and let them be bought at exalted for gold wouldnt be too bad. | ||||||||||||
| #1406 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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The Ghost is just slightly better than Vashj (shows how well itemized that robe is). The sunfire robe's mats are *very* easy, no sunmotes (I bet the mats will change), just need 375 tailoring. However, every caster will want the pattern. | ||||||||||||
| #1407 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ludwig |
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| #1408 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ashegorath |
I've been really disappointed with the lack of warlock-focused gear (aside from Sunfire Robes and other choice pieces), so to keep myself sane I can only put down the lack of decent itemization to the gear being the best gear for leveling in WotLK. Massive crit/haste/damage w/o a thought of hit just points to that with some useless Spirit on the side. Do whatever it takes to get the 202 spell hit rating in the mean time.
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| #1409 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
Well given that Leggings of Calamity showed up off of a boss (and were not previously found) and there are already 'token legs' with similar stats + spirit, it is quite likely that there is more non-set cloth drops which are not linked to the token vendor which have not been seen yet. So I would not simply judge all the gear as what our class was given yet.
Perhaps the token hand-in versions that have been seen are all somewhat of a 'refund' version that you can get if the healing one drops yet is not really useful for your raid, yet are not the best-in-game version for a dps caster. Also good as levelling gear when the expansion hits, as a healer can simply hand in all their healing gear for superior dps versions. | ||||||||||||
| #1410 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | RunsWithScissors |
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| #1411 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
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Gems are not really a good solution to +hit problems due to the cap (high value up to 202, zero value after that point.) When you're talking epic gems, you basically have to gem way over hitcap and just deal, so you're not wasting gems as you swap back and forth as gear changes (like I at least used to, when gearing through T4/T5.) | ||||||||||||
| #1412 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
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The +hit is lacking on the gear, but the reason is pretty obvious, once you take the best in slot pieces [Hood of Hexing] ( from affliction point of view - stacked with 12 spelldamage gems ) , [Nethervoid Cloak] , [Tempest of Chaos] or [Vengeful Gladiator's Spellblade] , [Chronicle of Dark Secrets] or [Blind-Seers Icon], 4 piece tier 6, its actually quite hard to NOT be over the hitcap. Hence I understand the choice of blizzard to not put massive +hit on most items and its simply not needed. The belt of the malefic vs anetheron's nose : I say that belt of the malefic is better if you can somehow manage to be under the hitcap so that you are actually using the hit on this item. To judge what is better you just take a look in the spreadsheet of leulier.com what 1 spellhit is worth, 1 haste , etc and then add it to a raw spelldamage value. As UA lock crit is usually around 0,3 , making [Anetheron's Noose] effectively 87 spelldamage, while with the changes in 2.4 regarding haste ( according to leulier 1 spellhaste is worth a little bit more than 1 spelldamage even for affliction ! ) make the [Belt of the Malefic] 111 spelldamage ( 50 + 29 from spellhaste + 20 from hit + 12 from epic gem ) making it considerably better. Even when you dont use the hit, it nets 91 damage which is more than anetherons noose ! Last edited by Nerull : 02/13/08 at 11:19 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1413 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Laquistifah |
Does anyone know how valuable spell haste will be for Affliction and Destruction Warlocks, compared to crit/dmg, once it reduces the global cooldown? I'd like to know if I should start sacrificing damage and crit for haste and how, on a point to point basis, it compares to crit and damage.
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| #1414 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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For destruction: great. Obviously, it depends on how much of each stat you already have. For me it beats any other stat, at the moment. Compendium will be updated when the patch is released. | ||||||||||||
| #1415 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Laquistifah |
thanks
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| #1416 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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| #1417 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lerker |
One thing that recently came to mind but hasn't really been mentioned here, is 2.4 affliction vs destro.
With +dmg and haste becoming the dominant stats in 2.4 gear, is it possible that affliction could out perform sac destro with 2.4 gear and become the most prominent heavy DPS spec? What I'm thinking is that with the lack of hit, a few of the really good 2.4 items will be pushed aside to maintain the hit cap, where as with affliction these could be picked up for a hefty +dmg and haste upgrade. Of course my mind may be completely out of the ballpark.. thoughts? | ||||||||||||
| #1418 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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1. Destruction scales better with +hit (Fully usable) 2. Destruction scales better with +crit (Ruin) 3. Destruction scales better with +dmg (Shadow and Flame beats out DoT coefficients) 4. Destruction scales better with +haste (Uniform time compression) Until some of these issues are addressed we should not expect affliction to win out at the high end. | ||||||||||||
| #1419 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Besides, destro locks give up a pet, instant dots and their self-sufficiency, making that tradeoff has to result in increased damage output or the tree becomes utterly useless. Also, on a personal note: as a BT farming destrolock, getting upgrades that don't feature a gazillion hit is a godsend. I'll finally be able to use all the really good items that I'm passing on now because they have wasted +hit on them. Last edited by Arelenda : 02/13/08 at 7:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1420 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1421 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sardaukar |
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| #1422 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
Haste appears to be superior to +damage at even considerably lower levels of gear but seems to suffer from diminishing returns (according to Leulier's spreadsheet, which is oftentimes pretty screwy if you're messing with a lot of numbers), which isn't making a whole lot of sense to me. I was trying to get exact numbers at how much better haste is at BT gear levels, but as I increased haste, it seemed to worsen and worsen, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, since it seems that a flat % increase would stay a consistent increase in DPS, but it appears that it isn't, doesn't hit sort of work in the same fashion? As you approach the cap, the increase you get in DPS per point seems to get smaller. Anyway, at higher gear levels (like 1600 damage+) the returns on haste seem to be better until haste is at near ludicrous levels anyway (~30%+) so it seems like a non-issue. For lesser geared locks, they seem to approach that ceiling faster.
With this information in mind, it seems like us locks should start stocking up on the Dawnstones/Lionseyes and regemming all our gear with straight haste instead of even oranges, and much less straight reds. Perhaps socket bonuses would be worth sticking an orange or two in there, since damage is still very good, but it appears that as far as destro locks are concerned, that haste is the way to go. I do have some questions regarding demo locks though, I myself am a demo lock, and I'm interested to see more of the armor come out so I can make some mock sets and see the DPS myself. I have a feeling then that trying to stretch things like the 2/5 T5 bonus will start to go too far, and demo will be decreasingly viable. While it can hold it's own in BT, I think it'll be difficult to maintain that sort of status in Sunwell. There's no real substantial increase in white stats, which is the only thing that really scales better than destro (given, it's not something you gear for, but something that you get a lot of, especially on lock sets, so it's far from a null point) and a much larger increase in things like crit and especially haste, which still does absolutely nothing for demons, so his DPS won't see much of a boost either. I'm guessing I'm going to have to turn in that demo badge soon. I suppose some concrete numbers would be nice, but some changes to demo are going to be necessary if it ever wants to compare at higher levels of gear. But my guess is that's not going to happen till 3.0 anyway, so best not get my hopes up. Any other raiding demo locks have more definite numbers than me? | ||||||||||||
| #1423 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1424 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1425 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
All linear stats will diminish (very) slowly as you stack them. Haste diminshest very slightly faster than normal becuase it increases mana consumption while it doesn't increase the regen, so a higer % of your casts will be liftaps. If you had 0 regen haste would have no diminishing returns as you'd lifetap every X shadowbolts, and while haste would not be a straight +% damage, the dps you'd get from haste with 0 haste is equal to the dps you'd gain with a million haste. Either way haste, just like any linear stat, will be worth less and less spell damage the more you stack it. At the end though those difference are rather minoric and only change the value of 1 haste rating by less than 0.1 spell damage equivalent compared to what it would be with different gear/setup.
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| #1426 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
Ah yes, the fact that haste doesn't technically increase your damage, just the rate at which you deal it had slipped my mind when I was writing that. Regardless, I'm ecstatic that haste is finally a gemmable stat, something I've been hoping for since it first started popping up on items, given, in my head, I woulda thought it more useful to have it on blues or something to make those blue/purple/green gems more valuable, as well as their slots, but it's nice to know that most Sunwell caster gear is devoid of blue slots anyway. I'm glad Blizzard has gotten itemization down much better these days. Plus it'd be hard to get those Sapphires and Amethysts away from other classes anyway.
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| #1427 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nektheritos |
Bringing the subject onto gemable haste, what gem will now be better for an affliction warlock at the affliction hit-cap to gem for when looking for yellow sockets (when the socketbonus is just too tasty to not ignore), dmg/hit or dmg/haste? The hit would only really benefit the immolates/shadow bolts while haste would now help with the GCD, even though the gain from it seems slightly less in comparision.
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| #1428 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bokkie |
Even for affliction locks, the shadow bolts will be a very big portion of your total dps. So hit is still very important as stated already several times in this thread.
Also, lowering the global cooldown, will give affliction locks effectively more shadowbolt time between keeping up dots, making hit for your bolts even a bigger factor in the equation. Given that, I would surely go for hitcap on shadowbolts before taking in haste. But you can use the sheet now, since it was updated with the 2.4 haste model, to see what stat is more beneficial to you with your current gear and stats. | ||||||||||||
| #1429 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
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| #1430 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cerine |
Even then, due to the item cost of stacking a single stat, you'll get less out of an item with only damage than someone who can use dam, crit & haste and uses an item of the same item level with damage crit & haste.
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| #1431 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Affliction gets more than that on UA and Corruption (150%ish, roughly? I'm sure people will be able to give me the right numbers), which they cast every 18 seconds, but significantly less on SB (3/3.5=86%), which they use in between. I'd say destro wins but barely. I'm sure people can run the numbers, I did it a while ago but didn't keep the calculations. | ||||||||||||
| #1432 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | doogless |
It's more than 86% because of Shadow Mastery.
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| #1433 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1434 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Looking at lieuler's spreadsheet with my baseline stats (with some adjustments for aff/destro switches), taking out all the buffs for destruction for sake of comparison (as affliction usually lacks buffs due to being in the tank group):
Destruction: 0.823 dps/spelldmg Affliction: 0.715 dps/spelldmg So yes, afflction scales much worse with hit/crit/haste and doesn't even scale as well with spell damage. The only way for afflction to do any good dps is to spam DoTs on multiple targets, which just doesn't happen usually, and even when it does, depending on your gear level, may not be enough of a DPS gain to warrant affliction spec especially when considering it'll cause less spells to benefit from improved shadowbolt. for personal dps at least. Affliction might scale better than destruction with spell damage with multi-dotting, though, but it doesn't really matter since even if it did scale better with spell damage it still doesn't scale with the gear upgrades that exist in the game. | ||||||||||||
| #1435 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gugarasch |
Since I started to read this thread and since my guild started to have one Destro Lock in the Raid, there always occured the same question to me. How can you do proper DPS as Destro without a Shadowpriest? Maybe it's just our Destros, who wont stop whining, if they are not in a SP Group. But you can also see it in our WWS Records. Destro never has 100% DPS Time on an encounter, because of Life Tap and DPS Time e.g. Damage Output gets lower if he has no Shadowpriest in his group due to more Life Tap if Pots are on CD.
Me as an Affliction Lock with tanks as groupmembers do lower DPS but I don't have to be supported that much. We only got two SP slots in our Raidsetup and that is why we got only one Destro in the Raid and keep having 2 Affliction. So how is it possible to do DPS without SP as destro? Or doesn't a Destro without Shadowpriest become as *weak* as affliction? | ||||||||||||
| #1436 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Andeh-N |
Whilst I rarely have to raid without a Shadow Priest in my group, on the occasion that I do it isn't really the end of the world. Just looking over some of our WWS reports, I get about 10k mana back on average for most Hyjal & BT fights, that's about 5-6 Life Taps for me personally, I'd imagine it isn't too far off of what it'd be for another Warlock too.
So if you figure that you have to LT 7 times extra in a fight without a Shadow Priest, which is about 10.5 seconds, though realistically it'd be safe to say about 12, due to lag. It doesn't cut into Destruction DPS so much so that it renders you useless. TL;DR answer is 'Use pots (which you should anyway!)' | ||||||||||||
| #1437 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ankido |
I have a question for everyone. There's a debate going on in the guild about Immolation. Does immolation fit in a warlocks rotation as a 21-40 raiding spec? Someone in the guild did the math and came up with an outragous number showing that immolation does more damage then spamming shadow bolt. Can someone please help me out here and help end this debate with SB vs Immo. Are these two spells good to use together or is it best to ditch immo and spam SB?
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| #1438 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Destrolocks do benefit from a shadow priest, but I'd reckon any other class would benefit more from it, except for maybe an enhancement shaman. Any other class is severely gimped without mana. However, if a destro lock gets _no_ healing whatsoever, their dps takes a giant dive as they resort to bandage or drain life. I only had that on Naj'entus, when we were learning him. Usually it's not a problem, and as long as you're smart about when to LT it works fine. After all, a raid typically has 6-8 people in it that spec and gear themselves to be mana batteries with efficient heals. The occasional hot fuels your life taps comfortably. For comparison, if I get a shadow priest that gives me 9k mana during a fight (by doing 200k damage), I gain about 3 SB's worth (5 lifetaps at 1800 mana each). Roughly 15k extra damage in total. Assuming I do 150% of what the SP does, you can estimate my damage at 300k, 315k with the 3 extra bolts. Roughly 5% increased DPS. This is in best case scenario, assuming Lifetap GCD as 100% wasted time. So a shadow priest gives me 5% extra damage. A shaman (non elemental) gives me 100 spellpower, which is also 5%. Moonkin gives me 5% crit, also 5%. Elemental Draenei shaman would increase it with 13%. (4% hit, 3% crit, 100 damage) These are _rough_ estimates with a lot of assumptions being made. But I hope they give you an idea of what helps destrolocks and by how much. | ||||||||||||
| #1439 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1440 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Keep in mind that a spiest is far less useful on any fight with 'safe' movement or 'safe' downtime, such as Alar p1's movement, or Illidan's phase change. | ||||||||||||
| #1441 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
It does, however, make it far safer for them to lifetap on AE-heavy fights in, e.g., T6, because they don't need to tap every 13 seconds and risk an AE at the same time. Council is downright boring when I have a spriest because I'm not close to dying multiple times in the fight unless I get unlucky on envenom + wrath or something silly.
Keep in mind, while it's "just" 90 dps, that's still a pretty solid increase, and is on par with many of the group-based buffs. Especially since we're the main class who can turn that mana regen directly into dps rather than simply into more longevity. Also warlocks can consume the "full" regen from a spriest (i.e. none is wasted.) The only other class that can come close to claiming that (unless you're running with arcane mages or something) would be healers, if they can find people to heal pretty much constantly. If you are willing to take the overhead, things like swapping groups around mid-fight to feed half a spriest to the other mana-using classes while keeping your destruction locks with one full time is actually a pretty good use for the spriest. That said, you *can* raid as destruction without a spriest, particularly in the T4/T5 content, but definitely in T6 also, it's just a lot more exciting when you tap and immediately afterwards envenom lands . | ||||||||||||
| #1442 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Kyth |
Professions in 2.4
(paraphrased from my post at Profession choices for 2.4 - Fusion)
This isn't 100% rigorous, but it's an approximation: what kind of dps contribution can I expect to get from my second (non-leatherworking) profession given what we know about 2.4 already? There's some more detailed information in the post above (including my specific stats), but the conclusion I came to was: Enchanting: +24 dps (ring enchants) Tailoring: +36 dps ([Sunfire Robe] versus [Robes of Ghostly Hatred]) JC: +38 dps ([Pendant of Sunfire] versus [Translucent Spellthread Necklace]) i.e.: not a helluva lot of difference. Good work on that, Blizzard . (this was all assuming you were at hitcap already, i.e. the worst-case for the +hit gear. The difference for JC is less if you actually need the +hit on the RoS neck to reach hitcap.) (edit) I should probably clarify: since Leatherworking is giving you a good 80-100 RDPS per person with it, I'm not going to drop LW no matter what. It's more than worth its profession slot. Last edited by Kyth : Yesterday at 7:01 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1443 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Roywyn |
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The difficult part is the stat weighting. 1 damage is 1 damage. 1 haste and 1 crit are worth whatever +damage the spreadsheet tells you. The value of hit completely depends on the available gear and buffs. From the things we've seen so far, it seems we won't cap hit from gear alone. I count ~9% hit from best-in-slot (head enchant, ZA+JC ring, Skull, Chronicle*), ~12% with the 50-hit-stick. Warlocks have another 1.5% more from one of the new T6 pieces. That means we'll have to gem to reach the hit cap. So, our gems will feature 2 purples for the CSD meta, and a mix or yellow/orange/red gems with hit and damage to cap. If we now get another +10 hit from one item, we cap swap one +10 hit gem for one +12 damage gem. Thus, +1 spell hit should be valued as +1.2 damage for gear comparison. With this in mind, every socket should be valued as +12 damage, and every item can get its socket bonus. The top of the line gear doesn't have more than 2 blue sockets, so blue sockets aren't worse than others since you need 2 for the CSD. And red/yellow/orange gems are all worth +12 damage as we weighted hit vs. dmg with that in mind. With those weights, for mages it ends up as: Ench (+24) > Tai (+21) > JC (+17) Note that the values of Tai/JC will drop if a proper (no spirit) Sunwell robe or necklace appear. I'm quite surprised that 14crit+13haste (robe) are so much better for you than 24dmg (ring enchants). | ||||||||||||
| #1444 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Kyth |
I used Leulier's spreadsheet for the lock calculations which does what you're saying: gives weightings for each stat.
To answer your "how in the world..." question: ![]() STAT DPS BONUS +1 shadow dmg 1.02 +1 fire dmg 0.00 +1 dmg 1.02 +1 hit rating 0.00 +1 crit rating 1.07 +1 haste rating 1.27 For locks with no +hit talent, we're actually going to lean extremely heavily on the yellow sockets to put orange hit/dmg gems in them. Otherwise we can't reach the required 16%. But either way I'm not sure why you brought up sockets, as there's no real decisions to make in any of the pieces I was talking about. I'm pretty familiar with how to evaluate gear, I was posting what I'd come up with in case I was (a) wrong for destruction locks or (b) it could save someone else some effort, not because I needed help understanding gear stats . If you get a Grand Magister's Staff, of course, the hit considerations change, but every mage and warlock will want one, and if it follows the drop rate of Illidan staffs for us (3 in 6 months) I'm not going to design gear expecting it. Now, the value of the stats change relative to the particular balance you have at any given moment. So technically, for example, my low haste gear (~7%) is not characteristic of end-of-sunwell gear (~18% probably), so this is, as I said, an approximation. What I haven't done yet is put the full new gearset into Leulier's, but I pointed that out at the start. My main point really was not that JC > Tailor or whatever, but that they were all damn close and while I will generally spend any amount of money on a dps boost, at this point with so little information about what tradeskills I'll want in TBC, I'll stick with my current set (LW/Ench.) There's been some angst around our guild, particularly from those who dropped tailoring to pick up leatherworking, and I was trying to show it wasn't warrented. And, this may help you: keep in mind the tailoring robe also gets an additional +5 due to the socket colors being more favorable for the bonus if you have enough hit. Last edited by Kyth : Yesterday at 8:08 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1445 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Bolche |
It would be nice to add the profession comparision to the compendium (and add LW : ~27 haste rating if drums are chained I beleave)
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| #1446 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | weet |
Well my plan is to keep Tailoring until I can craft the robe, then drop for JC to make neck and the 14dmg/12crit gems, and then to leatherworking (which I already had mats for but wanted to see what was in 2.4 first). Best of everything (Illidan helm > Engi t2) and gold is really meh especially with the expected inflation at 80.
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| #1447 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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I'm going to wait with writing that until the patch goes live. Feel free to contribute yourself, though. I'll merge it in that case. | ||||||||||||
| #1448 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ♦ Eph |
Don't forget engineering, or am I wrong in thinking the t2 goggles are best in slot (from what's been discovered at least)? My current plan is to make the robe, drop tailoring, and pick up the goggles. I suppose JC or LW could be an even higher dps increase though.
edit: JC also has a +14dmg gem so that bumps it up just slightly as well. Last edited by Eph : Yesterday at 11:14 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1449 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ♦ frmorrison | |||||||||||||
| #1450 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ♦ Eph |
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| #1451 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weebey |
I tried searching this thread for my answer, but wasn't able to find anything solid on how many fire/frost users it takes to make curse of the elements worthwhile. Our raids aren't always overflowing with mages, so I'm not sure how many it takes to make up for the loss of DPS by not using CoD. Only one of our locks has 3/3 Malediction and he will almost always be better served using it on Curse of Shadows.
I've been tossing up CoS whenever there are two more shadow users, which is every raid. My apologies if this has been gone over already. | ||||||||||||
| #1452 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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If you cast CoD instead, you have to refresh it 5 times. Costs about 3 shadow bolts worth of casts due to GCD. So it's worth it if : fire/frost damage over 5 mins / 10 + 3 * SB damage > 5 * CoD Or roughly 1100 dps worth of frost/fire is required if I plug my stats in. | ||||||||||||
| #1453 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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1 frost mage = CoE 1 fire mage = CoD, swap to CoE at or about the 20% mark. 2 mages = CoE | ||||||||||||
| #1454 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
They posted pretty good rules about CoE, but keep in mind CoR should take priority over CoE and CoD since every raid will have at least 7-8 melee including the tanks/hunters. Its safe to use on almost every fight if you keep Demo Shout up.
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| #1455 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Chersuine |
Tank group Imp buff
A lot of the posts touched on this, but there was not a lot of discussion on the topic.
Does it make sense to keep one lock affliction to maintain the Imp buff in the Tank group? We have 3 locks that raid regularly and our last affliction lock respecced to Destruction. If any of the current locks respec back to affliction they are going to see a reduction in DPS. Needless to say none of us want to do it -- we currently take turns playing with our imp rather than a sacrificed pet. Is there a discussion on the benefits of keeping an Imp available even with the loss of DPS? Or is this simply a raid preference, dependent on the raid leaders? | ||||||||||||
| #1456 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Chaley |
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Still having an affliction warlock has its uses. I am our Malediction/Ruin specced warlock, and I put out respectable dps (#1 on the charts for our first Illidan kill) along with providing an Imp for Najentus/Council where having more HP on certain classes (Priests in particular) helps a lot. It also makes you easier to stay alive with dark pact instead of life tap. Gear choices have to be made in certain ways for an affliction warlock to pull some good numbers, but if you are in BT/Hyjal you have access to all the best affliction pieces. One thing you shouldn't be worried about is personal DPS, nor should you worry about boosting your tank's health. One of your warlocks should be affliction just for the 5/5 SE and 3/3 Malediction debuffs as they can be pretty huge for certain raid groups or certain encounters. If personal DPS is a huge issue that can't be gotten around, figure out how much the extra 3% from Malediction would give the raid and add it to that warlock's damage. You'll see that if you look at it that way that warlock really doesn't lose damage. | ||||||||||||
| #1457 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Chaley |
I shouldn't drink while posting =).
Last edited by Chaley : 02/19/08 at 10:38 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1458 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1459 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1460 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
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2 instances every Lock is out of the 5SR, during the freeze when Illidan is 30%, and in between trash pulls. Still ignorable, but it isn't bad to have spirit. | ||||||||||||
| #1461 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If you're still having trouble with any fight (which is mostly what we all gear/spec for, no? If everything is on farm things start to not matter as much although you could go for max dps but still the important discussion is what to do for progression), you should have affliction warlock in your raids. Especially if you think imp in the tank group is important enough to make a destruction warlock do it, you'd actually gain dps if that destruction warlock goes affliction since destruction with 15% less damage sucks. Not to mention when you're progressing you probably don't lose a lot of DPS for going affliction. It takes quite a bit of gear for destruction to outdps affliction+malediction, and a lot more gear than that for the dps increase of destruction to be worth the loss of shadow embrace and imp in the tank group (and again destruction with imp will probably do less dps than affliction at most/all gear levels).
To sum it up unless you have insane gear and everything in the game on farm, you should be affliction if your raid doesn't have one already. This goes all the way from SSC to killing illidan and will probably be applicable for sunwell as well. Just like you prioritize loot to the MT, you also prioritize people speccing into a spec that will contribute less dps to the raid but give a huge buff to the tank's survivability and lower tank dead tank and oom healer wipes. Remember that the causes for wipes, from most common to least common (with a rather big difference between them), is: -People handle special fight mechanics wrong and get themselves or others killed. -Tank died to a random burst, either combined with healers not being able to heal at that very moment or not. While only a few bosses hit hard enough to have a small chance to deal an unhealable burst, lots of bosses do enough damage to have a chance to burst your tank enough to kill him if your healers also had other issues with the fight (be it handling mechanics wrong but not in a "instant wipe" way, too much raid healing and not healing the tank, or anything else that has to do with learning the fight). This is the most common wipe reason that can be patched with gear. -Healers went oom. Usually when you're lacking shadow priests and/or raid is simply taking excessive damage from fight mechanics they're not used to - not enough to actually die and wipe but enough to run healers dry. This is rather rare though as people that take more damage than intended usually die. -Not enough DPS. This is by far the rarest of all, as if everyone is alive they need to have pretty terrible skills and gear in order to not have enough dps to kill the boss before enrage. Usually people that are bad enough to not do enough DPS are also so bad they'll die to fight mechanics way before their lack of dps shows as a problem - it's that easy to have enough dps (or at least that much easier than the "staying alive" part). Since having an affliction warlock helps with the most common reason for wiping by a lot while making the least common reason for wiping a little more possible (if at all, you do need pretty good gear for destruction to out-do affliction+malediction even counting destruction ISB raid dps increase), it's always a good idea to have one in your raid, unless you're just farming everything in the game, have so much gear that affliction will be a more noticeable raid DPS loss and just want to get faster timed clears. | ||||||||||||
| #1462 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
I think the effect of imp is getting more and more marginal.
When your 3/3 improved imp gave the tank 1k HP if you include kings which was at karazhan levels close to 10%, now with BT gear the imp has scaled down to only a 4,5% hp increase considering a non tauren MT of 21-22k HP buffed. Aside that, my personal experience with wipes is at least my current guild that the MT pretty much dies last, pretty much never the MT dies for whatever reason , its usually another keyplayer who dies that is causing things to go downhill rapidly. That all said, the only reason, which is still _very_ much valid and pretty much mandatory to have 1 affliction lock in sunwell is shadow embrace. The debuff is serious stuff. If everything is on farm, as said earlier however, it doesnt matter what you spec , just play what you like most ? Im sure that if you are a reliable nice person the raid leaders wont mind you do 300 dps less than the destro locks when everything is on farm. Again that said when everything is on farm you spend most of your time in an instance on trash by far and that is where affliction can really shine. Despite being affliction I have been top 3 damage in almost all raids and thats mostly due to the fact that I pretty much raped everyone on trash. | ||||||||||||
| #1463 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
Destro spec and G15 keyboard
I also have a question about destro locks. After always been afflcition in raiding, I recently went destro as there was no more need of an affliction lock since everything is on farm.
The biggest things to optimize dps as destro is to make sure your shadowbolts are cast with the least delay possible , other than that you pretty much cant go wrong with the mechanics I figured. To optimze the time casting shadowbolts I figured you can either get used to your rythm, or just spam the button after it has passed the 2 second line of the cast bar. I guess some will prefer the rythm thing, I guess thats most enjoyable to play, but if Im thinking in terms of maxing ( Im going destro now to max, Im still in love with affliction for the more complex gameplay ) , then the spam becomes more viable (?). Now instead of spam pressing my keyboard like a semi retard for 3-4 hours long, I decided to make a macro in my G15 keyaboard that passible spams the shadowbolt and trinket buttons like a maniac ( on a 0,02 second interval ) . I now have fun watching the environment and enjoying the big number show instead of pressing it like a maniac. My questions now are : - Does anyone know if this considered legit or exploit ? - If its considered exploit , is it detectable by blizzard ? - Do you feel it takes the fun away from the spec that to be most effective you have to resort to this ? | ||||||||||||
| #1464 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bahkauv |
The G15's Macros are not illegal. If you use a macro that allows you to be afk for a certain time, it is illegal if you do so.
As long as you sit in front of your computer, it is not illegal. It is of course detectable, a guy pressing a button every 0,02sec and not answering to a GM and still pressing that button after the target is death/oor/whatever is quite suspicious ;-) Regarding the fun thing: Destro spec is the least fun spec to play, at least in my opinion. No dots to refresh, no Felguard to save, just a button to press over and over again. Automating that task can´t reduce the fun, because there is no fun. | ||||||||||||
| #1465 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
Destro isn't just pressing one button, if you're doing that, you're doing something wrong.
1. Spam shadow bolt, curses. 2. Keep track of aggro, plan for shatter, be ready for an emergency shatter 3. Plan your Life Taps 4. Plan your mana pots/destruction pots 5. Sync Bloodlust with trinkets 6. Sync your drum usage with the others in the group 7. Keep track of the particulars of the encounter | ||||||||||||
| #1466 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bahkauv |
2-5 and 7 is the stuff that every Warlock has to do during any encounter, and as you learn it, it becomes some kind of automatism. There is at least no difference between the different specs.
6 is something for Leatherworkers, which I am not. 1 is the point I was talking about. Of course I vastly exaggerated when I reduced it to shadow bolt spamming and not mentioning keeping a curse up ;-) | ||||||||||||
| #1467 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
Im not sure if you are cynical about your analasys fafhrd or not, a serious reply here there though. It wasnt ment in a way like : Press macro and go watch tv while doing archimonde. Having build in the nobrainers as default , the only thing that remains as a big point for optimizing is the timing of SB bolting, which human reaction cant hope to optimze as much as a macro spam.
Most points are no brainers, only point I see for serious improvement is timing the trinket(s) on bloodlusts ( As said I was afflcition until a few days ago and not used to getting bloodlusts in MT group ). Mana pot usage is something that although it slightly increases dps ( about 30-40 according to leulier ) , in encounters where the raid takes damage I prefer to keep it for the healing pot ( Bloodboil fel rage, RoS P3, Mother FA, Council the lovely envenom - flamestrike , Illidan P2 darkbarrage and healers not adapting appropriatly ). I do understand it gives more dps due to not having GCD and saving you from a lifetap. Can I shout at healers/other players to pay attention to my healthbar more ? Yeah I could, or I can just prevent dieing altogether , HP Pot + stone + deathcoil and if you arent healed up by then, then it is time for a chat yeah When I dont have to pay attention to the castingbar at all, I feel I actually have more time to properly watch the encounter , environment and omen. Last edited by Nerull : 02/20/08 at 6:14 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1468 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Kyth | |||||||||||||
| #1469 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
It's true that every Warlock has too keep track of the things I posted, in addition to pet management, clipping dots, Dark Pact etc. And it's true it get's automatic after a while when you're have bosses on farm-status. I was just countering the statement that destruction is just SB spam.
Anyway, I'm probably influenced by doing new stuff in Sunwell, especially Brutallus, where you currently need all the dps you can squeeze out of every single player. Nerull: With the new spell queueing mechanic I doubt you will get more dps out of your keyboard. You might save your SB finger from undue wear though. | ||||||||||||
| #1470 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
If you don't use mana pots and don't get shadow priest then you won't see the huge dps increase you're supposed to get. On the other hand you should have been using mana pots even as affli, it's not a matter of spec, mana usage is about the same. Anyway mana opts also allow you more freedom on when you're LTing so you can view them as a reverse hp pot, you just can't control when you use it. But HS + DC is oh-shit enough, it's a 4.3-6.5k boost in hp after all (<3 HS crits and lately it seems more like theyr'e critting at my own crit rate).
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| #1471 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
I will cross post this here as well because many might be interested in the actual weighting:
ImageShack - Hosting :: warlockhastezo2.jpg Started at hitrating = 100; critrating = 442; shadowdam = 1400; spellhaste = 0; Going up by 1 by 1 for each stat and calcing DPS over a 60000(to get some flattened numbers) seconds cycle. Picture should speak for itself. => http://elitistjerks.com/646902-post407.html | ||||||||||||
| #1472 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
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Its the best stat point per point and it has the additional benefit of being budgetted in cheapest of all. Crit is slightly over +damage, but I dont think the comparison is fair considering that +crit is a lot harder to get through item budgetting. +Haste scaling best is something Ive seen in the Leulier spreadsheet also, however , its not like : Ok, lets stack haste now and ignore the rest. At some point the value of crit is going up a lot more than haste at which time you need to invest in crit again until the situation is reversed. Ive personally taken the Zuljin neck and bracers of nimble thought recently instead of the crit alternatives. | ||||||||||||
| #1473 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Ye, just keep in mind that in my calculation it´s a single warlock spamming SBs.
No other warlocks or shadowpriests there to leech - which would inevitably reduce the crit bonus again. ![]()
Just doing another edit: ImageShack - Hosting :: warlockdsyu1.jpg Thats Demonic Sacrifice, no Improved Life Tap. hitrating = 202; critrating = 442; shadowdam = 1300; spellhasterating = 0; As starting values. Last edited by Madlax : 02/20/08 at 9:08 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1474 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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| #1475 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
As you can see from the WWS linked a few posts back and the discussion that follows, the main thing about DPSing is actually DPSing. Granted it's important to time your spell damage cooldowns and not clip them with lifetaps (ilfetap doesn't scale nearly as much with spell damage as shadowbolt, although at least it scales just as well with haste come 2.4), and preferably lifetap when you have to move anyway. And picking the right gear is also very important. But all of those factors dwarf in comparison to the importance of knowing how to actually not lose any casts and just stand there and dps as much as possible. That is, in fact, the main thing that seperates the good from the bad.
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| #1476 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Spuncan |
Regarding Ritual of Summoning's tool-tip not mentioning soul shards:
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Oh well, there goes that dream. | ||||||||||||
| #1477 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cohren |
Looks like our combined T6 Bracers/Boots/Belt changes are:
-120 Stamina +52 Crit rating +28 Hit rating Going to take Praetorian's assumption that the stam was removed to discourage the use of 4 piece T6 in the arena and say that I for one am tired of PvP affecting PvE in ways like this. | ||||||||||||
| #1478 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
While the 3 pieces lost 150ish stam (raid buffed with 21/40), which is 1,500 health while nice to have, there are only a few times with another 1500 health would make a difference. It is a nice dps increase and pre-changes the T6 belt was a sidegrade to Blasting, now no competitive to the "new" T6.
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| #1479 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Benafflock |
Assuming the change to Emberstorm -- the first point now grants a 2% decrease in Incinerate casting time -- is the only significant talent change we will be receiving, is this enough to push an Incinerate 0/21/40 build ahead of a Shadowbolt one? I would guess that the answer is no; however, this change seems to indicate Blizzard will be further increasing the viability of an Incinerate build.
Pardon the ignorance, but what exactly is a G15 macro? | ||||||||||||
| #1480 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
OT for Bena:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/ke.../3498&cl=us,en Ill throw those numbers into my calculation tomorrow and gonna tell you whether or not it´s gonna make a change. You gonna get CoE, 15% improved scorch and 5% misery, immolate and 10% emberstorm + 10% casting speed. This is gonna get interesting actually, though I doubt incinerate is gonna pull ahead. | ||||||||||||
| #1481 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Mordekhuul |
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I suppose you might assume it is bugged on the PTR, and that the remaining 4 points are supposed to increase the cast time by 10% though. | ||||||||||||
| #1482 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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| #1483 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
Yeah, I would run the numbers myself, but I'm studying for midterms...anyway, also take into account +15% from a sacced imp and the +25% from improved immolate. It should be interesting to see how things turn up, I'm pretty sure it'd result in a higher personal DPS, but unless imp SB is changed, shadow DPS might be preferred for greater raid DPS. Tough to determine right now, they'll be comparable anyway, and also, fire destro seems like a lot more fun to play than shadow destro. This seems like the probable build to use for 0/21/40 fire: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
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| #1484 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
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You can program it so that the key spams the shadowbolt button , so all you have to do is press the key once you get close to the end and it will cast with the most precision possible - as soon as the game allows it. You can program it so that it only spams when you actually press the key which is preferred, or that the thing just keeps pressing it for infinity until you press the macro button again, which would work in some cases, but again , not preferred. Now if human error gives about 0,1 ms extra casting time, you are effectively increasing your dps by 4%, the more haste you have however, the more significant the difference becomes. Played a bit with it yesterday and worked like a charm. | ||||||||||||
| #1485 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Ncj |
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| #1486 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ele' |
Well, actually if you press to key to cast your next shadowbolt a bit before the completion of the current one (a bit before its completion according to Quartz latency bar), it will be casted as soon as possible. You don't need to spam the key, simply pressing it once a bit before the completion of the spell will work. (I doubt this can be imputed to the lag, I have almost none).
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| #1487 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sympathy |
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The question I'd like answered is if all raid conditions are optimal for both Shadow & Incinerate DPS, that Emberstorm 5/5 results in an increase in casting speed by 10%, and that the "rumoured" ISB changes go through (Only works for the warlock, and increases Shadow damage by 15% instead of 20%), what would the coefficient incease of Incinerate need to be to result in Fire being the best for personal DPS? The reason I would ask is because with ISB possibly only affecting the warlock, the uptime of ISB would be inconsequential to the raid group as a whole, and with another "rumoured" Warlock change being a 'Incinerate spell coefficient increased by $', if that coefficient would be a ballpark figure of < 10%, then the rumoured coefficient change would make sense. With the change in haste mechanics, and +haste on items being prevalent in SWP, the change to Incinerate and ISB would indicate Blizzard's desire to really push this relatively new stat onto players in replacement to crit. | ||||||||||||
| #1488 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
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We don't even have a filler spell to help out on the rotations: conflag is a dps loss, recasting immolate early is a dps loss, searing pain is double threat, and an incinerate where immolate wears off halfway through is a dps loss. | ||||||||||||
| #1489 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | elrac |
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| #1490 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
With the new Skull nerf, how does [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] compare to [Icon of the Silver Crescent]?
When synced with the Skull every activation, I was pretty convinced Icon was superior, but I don't know if that is still the case. Currently, with my ~100 haste, I get 8 Shadow Bolts under the 20 second duration of the Icon, or 10 when paired with the skull. This effectively boosts the 26 dmg on use of the skull by 25%, to 32 damage. Heroism further boosts this effect. Last edited by Krazen : 02/21/08 at 11:54 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1491 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
Yes, I think now I will use Crusade over Icon for fights like Brutallus (100% probability you will keep Crusade up), 80dmg vs 69.
Regarding incinerate/emberstorm: Obviously the talent is broken, however, I don't think the 2% with one point works. I have 1 pt in emberstorm and my incinerate had the same cast time as shadowbolt (2.34s). Oh and elrac, add the Eredar Twins shoulders to that list =) | ||||||||||||
| #1492 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
I just fiddled with the spreadsheet's cast-time on incinerate. If Emberstorm gives 10% haste, a lock with maxed 2.4 gear would see slightly higher personal DPS with a fire spec. They outperform shadow by more if they can't use CoD, so if you're in raids where you always are on CoS/E/R, fire will be even slightly better. However, you don't contribute to ISB uptime. It certainly would push fire back into a decent raid spec though, if a slightly selfish one. :P
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| #1493 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
But if you're not casting Curse of Doom, your contribution to ISB uptime increases, so you would want to be using shadow instead of fire...
Addressing the lack of Bane affecting incinerate is a good thing. But until something compares to Improved Shadowbolt, or shadow priests start going out of style, fire would have to completely blow shadow out of the water to be worth using. I suppose it makes fire-destro acceptable for 5-mans and 10-mans, which is more than you can say for it now. | ||||||||||||
| #1494 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
I'm almost certain that this is not true. I believe that if immolate is up when you begin casting (and wears off before you finish casting) that you still get credit for immolate being "up" for the purpose of additional incinerate damage. I can't provide any hard evidence for this but I do use fire (sacced imp destro) on a limited number of fights and have found this to be the case.
Also, incinerate is affected by any immolate on the target.. so if you have even 1 other lock using immolate the probability of immolate being down is going to be quite low. | ||||||||||||
| #1495 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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| #1496 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Tahapenes |
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| #1497 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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If you had 2 SPs at 1200dps, going from 65% uptime to even 25% uptime drops the SP's individual DPS by less than 100 each, so it wouldn't be hard to make that up in personal gains. Obviously it's all speculation depending on the talent, but the loss from ISB wouldn't be that huge. | ||||||||||||
| #1498 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
The damage on Incinerate is locked after the spell is cast. If immolate drops before the bolt hits the target, you'll still get the bonus, but if it drops before you finish casting, you won't.
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| #1499 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
My understanding of the tooltip on incinerate is that it doesn't need to be your immolate either, just "target is afflicted by immolate". This means that with multiple locks even if personal uptime is low, it'll likely still be afflicted by the spell.
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| #1500 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
So if you watch your DoTtimers close enough, there should be no real DPS loss, as far as incinerate goes, the only DPS loss would be either if you cast it slightly too early and the last tick of immolate doesn't hit, or if you hit it slightly too late, and the time lost where there's nothing ticking between immolates, regardless, nothing ENORMOUS. What actually might be an interesting mod is an attachment to Dottimers that shows right before a dot ticks off, a horizontal bar, with a mark in the middle that calculates your haste that points out the exact perfect time to start recasting a dot or something. If any of you have ever played CABAL online, perhaps somewhat like the combo meter. I don't know, something to chew on for a mod idea. But might be too limited in use to be worth programming. Would just be a nice visual representation of when to recast dots.
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| #1501 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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| #1502 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Unless you'll be running with more than 1 fire lock on the same target, having to refresh immolate befoer the last tick needs to be taken into account when calculating dps. If you're running multiple warlocks, though, that effect is greatly reduced but there's still a small chance for an incinerate to land without an immolate being up if you rely on the other warlock to cover your immolate dot-gap.
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| #1503 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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Go to the Lists tab and in every entry for Incinerate replace 2.5 with: (2.5/(1+0.02*ember)) Check the raid debuffs for Imp Scorch and CoE/misery. Choose Imp as pet, 5 pts in emberstorm, 5 in imp immo and put immo in the casting list. I have CSD and t6 on in that version. With this as the stats: Add shad 1,701.81 Add fire 1,647.81 Total crit % 32.64 Hit % from gear 16.00 Stamina 600 Intellect 671.33 Haste % 21.97 mp5 161.9798 HP 9000 Mana 10069.95 I might have made a mistake, but don't think I did... Let me know if that works out on yours. ![]()
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| #1504 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
In fact, if you actually need the liftap mana (which I would guess is reasonable but need to do the numbers to make sure) you could completely eliminate the dot-gap effect I mentioned even as a single lock if you just lifetap once when you know your next incinerate will fire up after your immolate wears off - then you can recast immolate without clipping.
The only way this would not work is if you had enough mana/regen for the fight duration to not need to lifetap every immolate. | ||||||||||||
| #1505 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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In my original copy of the spreadsheet (for SB comparison), my stats are: Shadow: 1726 Fire: 1609 Crit: 32% Hit: 16% Haste: 7.23% mp5: 411.7 (accounting conservatively for VT and super mana pots) HP: 10507 MP: 9388 custom lifetap OOM time: 360 seconds In the second copy which has the Incinerate edit, to account for changing my cloak and weapon enchant, I changed: Shadow: 1651 Fire: 1701 Crit: 33.13% I'm getting 2289.31 for a Shadowbolt spamming build and 2081.34 for Incinerate with 5/5 Emberstorm and 5/5 Improved Immolate. EDIT: Nevermind, forgot to turn on Improved Scorch. I thought it was turned on by default. Getting 2393.55 with the new Emberstorm. Last edited by Gumibear : 02/22/08 at 12:55 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1506 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
Doh, that was testing out using a ton of the haste gear... Sounds like I didn't miscalc though, just had to get that 15% scorch buff. Again it's not a HUGE dps increase from shadow, but it is definitely an increase.
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| #1507 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
Now we have to wait and see if that ISB nerf comes true. My raids have about 65% ISB up time, so it would only take about 2400 DPS combined from both Shadow Priests in the raid to equal the gain from 3 Destruction Warlocks going from shadow to fire. 1200 DPS per Shadow Priest doesn't sound like too much to expect.
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| #1508 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silaine |
A quick sideways jump from the Fire-spec discussion.
My guild is currently working on Bloodboil in BT. We have cleared MH. I've been Demo for a long time but the fights seem so unfriendly for a pet. Destruction is definitely not working for me. Can I get some advice regarding a spec for the rest of the bosses in BT? | ||||||||||||
| #1509 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
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Well, I mean, you could be the guild's affliction bitch, but aside from that, what real options do you have? | ||||||||||||
| #1510 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silaine |
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| #1511 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | tack |
Anyone been doing any thinking regarding taking out Neltharions Tear from the bank again in SW? Might be an item to take into consideration for even the balance out, before getting your hands on the hit-gear that will be needed to maintain hitcap when taking the first couple of upgrades in SW.
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| #1512 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
T6 Belt - 20
T6 Boots - 28 Head: Illidan head - 21+14 Rings: Captured Storms and JC crafted - 38 T6 Shoulders(seems best for 4 part bonus) - 21 Nethervoid cloak - 18 --- 160 hit And there's plenty of room to play with still | ||||||||||||
| #1513 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
Considering there are multiple trinkets out there better than [Neltharion's Tear], even if you aren't hitcapped, no not really. You shouldn't be considering that or the [Scryer's Bloodgem] at all. And you really shouldn't need either.
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| #1514 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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You can definitely "shine" in t5/badge gear if your guild is still working through BT. I'd look into other reasons for lack of DPS than the gear. | ||||||||||||
| #1515 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | imalock |
It seems like [Eye of Magtheridon] is not mentioned that much anymore but I have a question. Is it still good enough to be worn if I am hit capped? Or just wear Icon + Crusade (at 16% hit)? My friend keeps telling me that I should drop my spellhit% from 16% down to 12% according to the DPS trinket website(sorry, can't remember the website's name) if i want to keep using Mag's eye.
Some say even if I am using Mag's eye i have to get 16% spellhit and others say I have to drop down to 12%. >.< I am confused. Currently my hit is 203. I am 1/45/15. I am also using icon + mag's eye for now and swap out icon with VST if the boss has AoE skills. | ||||||||||||
| #1516 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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You also want to use the Skull of Guldan in these calculations. | ||||||||||||
| #1517 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1518 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | imalock |
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Thanks in advance. | ||||||||||||
| #1519 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
Yep, although there are superior trinkets to Mag's eye that you can use instead when you get them.
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| #1520 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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Last edited by Gumibear : 02/22/08 at 4:27 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1521 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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EDIT: Your ninja edit made my point... damn you. Keep in mind the Shadow-lock v 2xSP ISB uptime becomes very dependent upon the amount of nukes the SPs are spitting out. That number can change quite a bit if I'm not mistaken. Regardless, the FIRST ISB-lock is very influential, so having one around is going to be a good idea assuming the "fake" patch notes remain fake. Last edited by Trickykid : 02/22/08 at 6:52 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1522 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cohren |
Are all these Shadow vs. Fire calculations being made with the assumption that Emberstorm will give a 10% decrease to Incinerate cast time? Unless I'm mistaken it is still unconfirmed if it is indeed meant to be 10% and not 2%. I know its good to do all the calculations beforehand but can do you believe that they would make a buff as big as 10% decreased cast speed AND nerf raid utility by making ISB only effect the Warlock that proc's it? Honestly if both of these changes are true then all that is happening is that Shadow and Fire are swapping places and they will need to do something to Destruction Shadow to make it more competitive as every Destro lock will then be fire.
If your going to theorycraft about Fire vs. Shadow there should be number crunching of only a 2% decrease as well as 10% until it is known what Blizzard intends with that change. | ||||||||||||
| #1523 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
I'm accounting for 10% casting speed increase on Incinerate but not accounting for the potential ISB nerf. 2% seems absurd. There's no rationale for the first rank of a talent doing something different than all other ranks, and I wouldn't even be considering 2% as something that could push Incinerate ahead of Shadowbolt.
The 2% is currently a display bug on the PTR, as several people have reported there's no decrease in casting time from having that single point in Emberstorm, and further ranks don't show the 2% haste at all from the first rank. | ||||||||||||
| #1524 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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Shadowbolt does still scale ahead of Incinerate eventually, but I'm uncertain if something like 30% haste with 40% crit is obtainable or even optimal. It really looks like scaling is in Shadowbolt's favor still because of the increase of ISB and Bane vs. Emberstorm, but higher base damage on the Fire rotation is harder to overcome now. | ||||||||||||
| #1525 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cohren |
There is no rational behind making fire a viable option. If they want fire to be viable, then the change to Emberstorm shouldn't be a decrease to Incinerates cast time but rather Transform: Mage. If they want different options in the end game raiding then they should work on having affliction scale with haste/crit gear.
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| #1526 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1527 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Murdoch |
I think the emberstorm change is there to buff PvP, making a destro arena build a bit less stupid.
Unless of course the ISB nerf is added, then the above statement becomes null, as ISB synergy is alot of the raid-buff reason to spec destro in the first place. Lets hope they don't nerf ISB; a talent that has been all but unchanged in the 3 years I've played (expect for the buff that made dot ticks no burn a charge) and otherwise a mainstay of the raiding spec. And for more than one class. | ||||||||||||
| #1528 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
Emberstorm (Rank 5) reduces the cast time of your Incinerate spell by 10%, that is now in the patch notes.
This is great for those that like the animation plus helps Destro PvP, plus maybe Mage buff. A lot of Mages say their squishiness and lack of utility would be fine if they had CoE, buffing Incinerate may make a CoE end up on the mob. | ||||||||||||
| #1529 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Thebeefe |
This still isn't gonna change PvE Warlocks. ISB is invaluable to the raid, Aff is still as weak as ever on the DPS front. I guess its another few months with 21/40 or bust!
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| #1530 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | DaveA50 |
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How much will this obvious PVP change effect the sustainability of raiding locks. It seems like the less health, and more mana, the more efficient that it will be. | ||||||||||||
| #1531 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | NanoHaxial |
I hope it's not intended, but I wouldn't be surprised. If it is, it's a horrible change. You'd want to sacrifice a lot of Stamina, but with the amount of AoE/Raid Damage in encounters, sacrificing too much would get you killed quickly, and on top of that Life Tapping would be even more dangerous than before.
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| #1532 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vetinari |
Right now, its 15% of your max health, for 15% of your current mana:
So I would guess its bugged. Pretty massive PVP nerf though, since a 14k hp warlock, with 8k or so mana, will lose 3.6k hp, to gain 2k mana. I'm glad I only log in to raid. | ||||||||||||
| #1533 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
Actual ISB is very easy to value as it adds an expected %increase to shadow damage. And if that increase isn't greater than a potential DPS increase from switching to fire, it's not valuable enough to keep.
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| #1534 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Drade |
Its actually at 26% of health into 26% mana on the PTR o.O...and doesnt appear to be doing that even. Obviously bugged.
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| #1535 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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Can tweak the sheet by changing the incinerate cast-time lists to list_filler: [top](2.5*(1-0.02*ember))/(1+haste/100)+lag | ||||||||||||
| #1536 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Drade |
The actual tooltip in-game says 2.25 seconds.
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| #1537 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Lumines |
New lifetap change is really going to gimp us so bad. I went on PTRs and my lifetap gave me 850 mana compared to my original 1700+ mana on live
edit: tapping for 1290 now, forgot to get talents Last edited by Lumines : 02/22/08 at 10:55 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1538 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Indaril |
nvm...been posted before
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| #1539 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | scottemad123 |
after a couple restarts on the PTR it seemed to be fixed, now it actually gives mana back when low.
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| #1540 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
Scaling Life Tap and making SPriests viable were the two huge TBC buffs to Locks.
I tested with PvE gear (1400 shadow damage) 1600 Taps. With S2/S3 gear (1000 damage) 1680 Taps. My tooltip said 26% of health into mana. Last edited by frmorrison : 02/22/08 at 10:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1541 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Pardon the fact that this post is gonna blow some poor 17" away
I took the liberty to run let emberstorm run through my calculation bot. Setup: 21/40 SB vs 21/40 Incinerate SB with ISB, no cataclysm Incinerate with cacatlysm All possible raid buffs + t64part 10000 base mana 360 seconds duration 1000 cycles(to get average DPS) Warlock is getting all his ISB for himself(granted he hits) Immolate is up the whole time(from another warlock, NOT self cast) Y-axis is DPS, X-axis is spelldamge scaling from 0-1800 (Yes for the theorycrafters, for each point in spelldamage it does 1000 cycles of 360 seconds) I don´t dare to say that my calculation is 100% flawless, but it looks very close to reality. Picture 1: 202hit, 0 crit, 0 haste, OLD emberstorm http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/6421/warlock1pl8.jpg Picture 2: 202hit, 600 crit, 0 haste, OLD emberstorm http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/6317/warlock2md4.jpg Picture 3: 202 hit, 0 crit, 300 haste, OLD emberstorm http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/2710/warlock3dn7.jpg Picture 4: 202 hit, 600 crit, 300 haste, OLD emberstorm http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/2831/warlock4vv2.jpg Picture 5: 202hit, 0 crit, 0 haste, NEW emberstorm http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/2982/warlock5fc2.jpg Picture 6: 202hit, 600 crit, 0 haste, NEW emberstorm http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/2038/warlock6cz8.jpg Picture 7: 202 hit, 0 crit, 300 haste, NEW emberstorm http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/9357/warlock7id9.jpg Picture 8: 202 hit, 600 crit, 300 haste, NEW emberstorm http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/3569/warlock8aj3.jpg Picture 9: 202 hit, 600 crit, 300 haste, NEW emberstorm, NO mana used http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9166/warlock9wb6.jpg Picture 10: 202 hit, 600 crit, 300 haste, NEW emberstorm, SB without ISB http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/6...rlock10zc0.jpg I´ll check for errors and see if I can tune the Mp5 into it next, or the Life Tap changes. Conclusion? From what the calculations give away it doesn´t seem to matter much whether you use SB or IC in endgame. ISB is what pushes SB slightly ahead(mind a calculation with cataclysm might change values a little). Both scale equally with haste, SB scales better with crit(what a surprise). The margin that keeps SB ahead seems to be ISB - but this calculation is not done with shadowpriests and other warlocks in mind. Note: Compare #8 and #10 and you will see that ISB accounts for roughly 400 DPS at 1800 spelldam. Feedback is welcome #Edit - pictures removed for new calculations Last edited by Madlax : 02/23/08 at 9:40 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1542 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
The new 2.25 Incinerate is really very nice for leveling with emberstorm, with cheaper mana cost plus similar SB damage you do better than live's fire spells.
I wonder how incinerate's buff works with haste. It is 10% off the casting time so 0.25 seconds off normally. With haste making Incinerate 2.42 (with 55 haste rating) it would be a 2.178 cast time, so it looks as you gain more haste Emberstorm doesn't give the same benefit as with 0 haste. | ||||||||||||
| #1543 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
This doesn't really mean anything since most locks don't raid in these circumstances. It might have been better to model 15% ISB against the change to emberstorm, but we all know how that will work out anyway.
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| #1544 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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| #1545 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
If the 15% isb with charges only usable by you happens, there won't be a shadow lock left.
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| #1546 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | RPZip |
Perhaps a dumb question, but why would you assume this? Casting your own Immolates after they tick out should be more damage than continuing to Incinerate, even assuming that there are Immolates present for the bonus to Incinerate. Assuming a 30% crit rate, it's 1.5s to deal 409 + .25 * SD * 1.3 + ..65 * SD versus 2.25s to deal 923 + .91 * SD * 1.3, or (409 + .25 * X * 1.3 + .65 * X) / 1.5 = (923 + .91 * X * 1.3) / 2.25. ![]()
According to my math, with 30% crit at any level of SD above ~1100 you should gain some damage by throwing your own Immolates in there after it's ticked out. I understand it'll make some of graphing more of a pain (most likely, the way in which you reference haste) but you're ignoring a fairly key part of the difference without factoring that in. | ||||||||||||
| #1547 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
Just to transfer some info from the 2.4 thread to here, regarding new lifetap:
It's 15% (or maybe 16%). 26% is a display error. If you link the spell to a non-warlock they will see the correct value. Mana return is currently working off of current mana, not maximum mana. Health cost is still max health. We assume this is a bug and will be fixed. Please keep in mind when reporting numbers from the test realm. Reports are that improved lifetap is functional at the moment. My hope is that the two percents become decoupled. Something like 15% health for 20% mana seems appropriate for a normal warlock's health to mana ratio. That depends on what the actual reason for the change is though, because I can identify at least three posibilities. Changing how lifetap scales with gear, an arena PvP nerf, or making INT more desireable for warlocks. On that note, what will it take for leulier's spreadsheet to include INT as a DPS stat, in terms of lowering time spent lifetapping? | ||||||||||||
| #1548 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | KrmtDfrog |
I just wanted to thank the OP for this post. My lock hits 70 soon and it's nice to have all the stuff - even the obvious crap everyone should know - laid out in a very simple, easy-to-read post.
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| #1549 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | KrmtDfrog |
Unless i'm missing someting, both of these are semi-unrealistic scenarios,
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| #1550 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | tetracycloide |
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You are not missing anything, both of those assumptions are skewed towards incinerate DPS considerably. | ||||||||||||
| #1551 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Kyth |
Despite the fire talents in the destruction tree, I agree with you. Not having a fire-damage curse or any other dots beyond immolate feels exceedingly unwarlocky.
The lack of a fire-based curse in particular rubs me the wrong way for some reason (despite the fact that our current curse design means I rarely get to cast CoD.) | ||||||||||||
| #1552 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • Slake |
The new Emberstorm/Incinerate talent change is exactly analogous to Bane/Shadow Bolt, in that it reduces the base cast time on Incinerate to 2.25 seconds. This changes the rate at which haste scales the spell, while not affecting the coefficient of Incinerate.
Collecting a lot of data on the PTR shows that it's pretty much 0.9*2.5/(1 + haste) for the cast time, rather than 2.5/(1.1*(1 + haste)), so the talent actually scales better than if it worked the other way around. | ||||||||||||
| #1553 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kirion | |||||||||||||
| #1554 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Fixing the ISB-consumptions to a given percent should not be too hard no, I´ll see about that later today.
Immolate will be harder to model yes and I didn't have any thoughts about whether it would improve or reduce DPS due to Incinerate simply being not used by now. Taking small adjustments is easy but requires some more feedback from you. As for the theory crafters: What would an adjusted ISB rather look like then - going from a Brutallus viewpoint with 3 locks and 1 spriest. 15% ISB bonus? 3 instead of 4 charges? Note: I'm calcing it based on a realistic model as I randomize each and every SB. Incinerate base build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Seems ok. SB base build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Immolate + Incinerate I recall Incinerate getting full bonus of Immolation when cast, even if Immolation expires during the cast. That correct or does it have to be on the target while the IC hits? *which I don't think* But hey, were getting there. #Update: Found a error in the cataclysm calculation. Immolate ~60% done, need to play with values a little to check. Adding 18 resistances aswell in the end calculation. Last edited by Madlax : 02/23/08 at 10:24 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1555 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
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Immolate is a dps upgrade if you have every fire talent and the new haste reducing global cooldown is in, so I don't see how that skews to incin... And I certainly don't see how getting to consume every sb tick you produce (I assume you also meant no overlap) is helpful to incin. You can basicly test it right now on the spreadsheet by just doing +10% haste when your in incin spec. It is obviously close enough that one more nerf to shadow/isb would make incin considerably better. | ||||||||||||
| #1556 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Drade |
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Lifetap subtracts 1501 hp, gives 1358 mana (10001/9234 hp/mana) on the current PTR build. 10001*.15=1500.1 9234*.15=1385.1 Both numbers are consistent regardless of what my current hp/mana is. Didnt test with Imp LT, but you mentioned it was working properly. | ||||||||||||
| #1557 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
I played around with the numbers yesterday with fire vs shadow with raid buffs + shaman + shadowpriest (what i personally raid with). This is without factoring in the lifetap change which has not been modelled yet afaik. I left coe and cos at both 1.10 modifiers. So effective mp5 was 419, and fight length was 360 seconds (Brut length, i see no reason to model anything longer as nothing thus far is longer without any movement time).
2.3 endgame sets see a 130dps increase from fire --> shadow 2.4 endgame sets see a 100-110 dps increase from fire --> shadow One thing I was expecting was a lower lifetap time needed for fire specs, but once you add in immolate into the rotation, a shadow build only lifetapped once every 32 seconds as opposed to 33 for fire. Adding Judgement of Wisdom and mana pots (so roughly 600 mp5) gave 64 seconds per lifetap for shadow and 70 for fire. So the difference in efficiency is really not that big. The real question for me is assuming one 38/2/21 shadow lock as a base, how much does each 21/40 lock contribute to raid dps due to ISB uptime given either 2 or 3 shadow priests? I find this work out so help would be appreciated, but I am guessing that in reality it is basically even. So unless we see another shadow related nerf most will probably stay as is. | ||||||||||||
| #1558 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | tetracycloide |
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ISB uptime goes up when adding an additional lock, not down, therefor only benefiting from your own ISB is a DPS reduction from a typical raid scenario. I'm assuming the model was correctly allowing ISB to time out after 12 secs if not consumed which, in a shadowbolt spam build like 21/40, would result in benefiting from fewer ISB charges than you would in a raid scenario. Adding immolate to the incinerate rotation is not necessarily a DPS downgrade but it throws off the scaling rates for haste and crit. Obviously with a much smaller portion of the spell being capable of the crit bonus immolate will always scale worse with crit. Haste is a little trickier after the 2.4 GCD change, basically will divide the blocks of spam time available into staggered blocks. Now the current sheet averages all of that out across infinity so it will not show there but there will be points where adding haste to a shadowbolt build will add DPS that will not add DPS to the immolate + incinerate model. Shadow builds will have greater flexibility in their cast sequencing because the do no require a debuff to be recast on the target at fixed intervals to deal full damage. | ||||||||||||
| #1559 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Well, took a while to get some logic into the calculation.
![]() Thats Incinerate + Immolate vs SB with all ISB self consumed(we want to make this biased again yes!) And this Is a sample output of the cast rotation. 1400spelldam, 600 crit, 300 haste, 360 secs duration, all talents how they should be. Trade-offs? 140.07 Hit 3438 140.57 Immolate stops burning here 141.96 Hit 3490 143.22 tapped for IM @ 313 Mana left. 144.48 Immolated 5251 And yes, I cheated on the Immolate - all damage at the inital cast(cba to do timestamps and threads currently) Could be better, still not perfect. And I am desperate to hear quality conclusions now - mine goes towards using Incinerate. Last edited by Madlax : 02/23/08 at 10:45 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1560 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | hackmage |
I tried searching and I didn't see anything posted on a 40/21 spec. It's really popular with some of my guild's locks and one of the best geared locks on our server. I tried it and thought it was horrible, but I may not have had enough crit. to make it work. It goes down to SL and DK in demo and down to Ruin in destro. Has anyone seen this kind of spec. work, and what kind of stats do you need for it? And would it be better to just go classic 21/40?
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| #1561 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Zether |
At what point should I stop worrying about the 2 piece t4 bonus?
I was using the t4 helm, t4 robe, along with the studious wraps. Just the other day I won the Cowl of the Grand Engineer from VR. I immediately socketed it with 3 runed living rubies and lost the meta gem of the t4 helm. I also replaced the studious wraps with the t4 gloves to keep the 2 piece bonus. Should I say screw the 2 piece bonus, and put the studious wraps back on? or should I say screw the Cowl and put the t4 helm on, so i can use studious wraps again? I'm at barely over 1100 shadow damage unbuffed, barely over 22% crit unbuffed, and 167 spell hit (im ALWAYS in a group with an elem shaman so that's all i need right?) I just don't know these fine lines yet. And my guild is about to kill KT so we're almost in hyjal/BT | ||||||||||||
| #1562 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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It's listed in the compendium and I've tried this build myself, it's a personal favorite. I enjoyed playing it. In the end I went back to 0/21/40 because I got tired of buffing issues, and I wanted full focus on encounters at hand, and having to focus on a succubus distracted me from that. We were learning BT at the time. And I didn't have a talisman. With around 200-250 spellpower gained from DK and 5% crit from DT, combined with the 15.5% damage bonus you get from Soul Linked Succubus that still can dps, it is a powerful build. That power comes at a price: the succubus dies easily. It requires _very_ good control of your pet to pull off. I don't recommend it for people without 2p T5 2p and a [Void Star Talisman]. At _very_ high gear levels 0/21/40 probably outdoes it consistently, because SnF simply scales better than anything else and the demonic tactics bonus barely scales with gear. I say probably, because if the succubus is allowed to dps it might be close. No lash of pain, though. That's a major ISB sin. | ||||||||||||
| #1563 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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I've been holding off the rewrite until 2.4. | ||||||||||||
| #1564 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | tusaki |
I have a question for all you theorycrafters who are better with math than me.
I've been trying to figure out how much +shadowdamage you must get (buffed) to see 10K shadowbolt crits assuming 0/21/40, 4 piece T6, chaotic meta gem. (against +3 boss) Also, if you figure it out, could you also post the math? I've been wondering what I'm doing wrong. Here's my attempt: D = max_shadowbolt_damage + (SDbuffed*coef) * curse_multiplier * shadowpriest_multiplier * crit_multiplier * gem_multiplier * ISB_multiplier * Succubus_multiplier * T6_Bonus. max_shadowbolt_damage = 603 SDbuffed = what we want to know coef = 105.71% (shadow and flame) curse_multiplier = 110% (no malediction here) shadowpriest_multiplier = 105% crit_multiplier = 200% gem_multiplier = 103% ISB_multiplier = 120% Succubus_multiplier = 115% T6_Bonus = 106% 10000 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 * 1.05 * 2.00 * 1.03 * 1.20 * 1.15 * 1.06 | / 1.06 9433 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 * 1.05 * 2.00 * 1.03 * 1.20 * 1.15 | / 1.15 8203 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 * 1.05 * 2.00 * 1.03 * 1.20 | / 1.20 6836 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 * 1.05 * 2.00 * 1.03 | / 1.03 6637 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 * 1.05 * 2.00 | / 2.00 3318 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 * 1.05 | / 1.05 3160 = (603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571)) * 1.10 | / 1.10 2873 = 603 + (SDBuffed*1.0571) | - 603 2270 = SDBuffed * 1.0571 | / 1.0571 2147 = SDBuffed I must be doing something wrong since it seems just a tad too high :S probably some things are additive or there is a certain order? | ||||||||||||
| #1565 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | tsuKii |
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| #1566 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
From what I've calculated fast the LT change isn't that huge, just bad, like 30-50 dps, makes the difference between healer group and spriest group higher and will probably scale down with sunwell loot.
Very retarded way to nerf something, I'd rather it kept current scaling just make it a higher ratio of hp (20%?, Imp LT would bring it in line) or just increase the % more and do rest of the tuning once WotLK comes and gear gets reitemized (at this point I've gained ~15% mana from upgrades while getting ~25% more damage while fully buffed). Just wish they'd explain the change and think it through a bit better, there certainly is plenty of time left on PTR to get it right and ideas from players that know exactly what's desired of the change would be a lot better than anything a dev that doesn't play would achieve. | ||||||||||||
| #1567 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
You can also up the curse modifier from 1.1 to 1.13 to allow for Malediction. Also I think you should possibly change crit modifier and gem modifier to a single modifier of 2.09, which I believe is how the CSD and Ruin actually stack. This seems to put the shadow damage required at 1811.
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| #1568 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Zakalwe | |||||||||||||
| #1569 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro | |||||||||||||
| #1570 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
The 2.4 end game set doesn't have anywhere near 600 crit rating.. Are you converting base, and the 8% crit from talents into crit rating?
Edit: Oh and spriests give 10% and 5% not 15%, 10% and 5% is better. Last edited by Flamingcloud : 02/24/08 at 12:26 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1571 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
CSD-Ruin crits are 209% instead of 2*1.03.
Edit: beaten badly, so I'll just add that the actual multiplier with Shadow Weaving and Malediction taken into account is 1.13 (CoS) * 1.05 (Misery) * 1.10 (Weaving) * 2.09 (crit) * 1.20 (ISB) * 1.15 (DS) * 1.06 (T6) = 3.99, that means buffed shadow damage at 1801 should be enough to make it a possibility. Last edited by Morwen : 02/24/08 at 1:16 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1572 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud | |||||||||||||
| #1573 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
Um, I don't think so.
They fixed this and the effect of resilience on crit talents for the RED meta gem, the melee one. After that, they made RED not affect spells. And after that, they added the CSD with the mechanics of the old RED before it was patched. Easy way to test? Cast Immolate until it crits, it does fixed damage. Check if it's 209% or less (206%/203%). | ||||||||||||
| #1574 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
Sure appears to be 209% although my immolate seemed to like to hit for different amounts abit (but the highest amount * 209% seemed to match the crit)
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| #1575 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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The 0/40/21 build is great for a couple of things: Having an Improved Imp will bump your spelldamage up about 300 points. That's pretty awesome, and the cheapest way to stack damage. The Succubus is a great damage buff on top of the (less-than-Imp) damage bonus you get from having her active, but it is too difficult to keep her alive in many cases. Dragonhawk avatar in Zul'aman, for example. Any fight with AoE. You will not be able to get a Soul Link benefit off her except in very specific situations, because she can't take much of you getting hit. With raid buffs my Imp has around 3400+ health and gives party members around 800 health. I bounce back and forth between 0/40/21 and 0/21/40, depending on my tanks. If for some horrible reason I need to have the Imp out in 0/21/40, I can still churn out around 1000 dps of Shadow Bolts and my gear is nothing special. The 0/40/21 build is the only reason I didn't claw my eyes out fighting Void Reaver, however. As for "what stats do you need for it" questions, your best bet is to just put yours into the spreadsheet and model them yourself. You could even play around on Warcrafter and change your talent spec, gear, gems, and buffs to get a pretty good idea of what you could do with what you've already got, and what you should focus on first. Unless your armory isn't your raiding gear -- I will say that the reason you found 0/40/21 horrible, and why you would find 0/21/40 even more horrible, is that you're wearing a bunch of PVP gear and have no spellhit. PVP gear looks almost like the real thing, but it certainly doesn't work as well. You're also not carrying nearly enough points in Suppression to compensate for your lack of gear. You're doing 5/5 Shadow Embrace though, which at your gear level is one of the best things you can do for the raid, since your Shadow Bolts are going to miss too much to benefit from going into the other two trees. If you put points into Suppression and take them out of improved Curse of Agony you wouldn't have to re-cast Unstable Affliction and your dots, too. In short -- stacking crit is probably the worst possible thing you could do at this point. If that isn't what you show up to raids in, it would be helpful to have that available, or just run the numbers yourself in Warcrafter or the various spreadsheets (in the first post in this thread). Last edited by Emolate : 02/24/08 at 3:12 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1576 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
The big issues with 40/21 is the Succy's shadow attack eats imp SB and she has low health so you can't run with Soul link much.
If imp SB is changed to only affect the Warlock that made the crit, that makes Fire a more attractive spec to me. I doubt imp SB changed will happen. Even if imp SB is changed to 15% (instead of 20), Shadow is better to me due to buffing raid dps. | ||||||||||||
| #1577 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
So, assuming Life Tap gives 16% mana back, INT would not only adds DPS by increasing crit, but also by increasing the return on Life Tap. My question is how much INT do you need to equal 1 Dam. I'm pretty sure the ratio is very crummy, but I was hoping for a definitive number to deflate the "stack more Int" argument for keeping this Life Tap nerf.
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| #1578 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1579 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bolche |
I have just updated my 2.0-beta2 spreadsheet to reflect the LT change.
With the default 0/21/40 build + T5 gear level I get : 2.3 LT : 1 int = 0.30 damage 2.4 LT : 1 int = 0.53 damage | ||||||||||||
| #1580 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | TheSorcerer |
I read the introduction post and searched the thread but asn't able to find what I as looking for. Are there numbers on how much chain chuggin mana potions as a destruction lock will increase your personal dps? I believe it should be something around 2 * 1.5 * personal DPS / pot cooldown, because a pot gives you close to twice Lifetap mana and thus allows you to skip two Lifetaps each pot cooldown. That means if your warlock has 1400 DPS you can calculate:
2 * 1.5 * 1400 / 120 = 4200 / 120 = 35 DPS Increase Are my numbers correct? Wouldn't it make sense to mention that in the inital post (there's nothing on chain chugging mana potions as a destruction lock there at all). | ||||||||||||
| #1581 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1582 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Chimera |
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A comprehensive list of every question that might ever be asked drowns out the important ones. In my opinion the OP does a great job of giving the broad strokes and covering the important questions that might be non-obvious to a beginning warlock raider. It also provides links to other resources that can answer more specific questions, for example the link to leulier's spreadsheet to answer the question "how much DPS do I gain by spamming mana potions?" I think the more apt question, however, should be "do I gain more DPS by spamming mana potions or destruction potions?" For me the answer is that mana potions are better than destruction potions on any fight longer than two and a half minutes, assuming the fight doesn't have down time where I can lifetap "for free." I encourage you to check the spreadsheet to find out what the answer is for your particular gear set. | ||||||||||||
| #1583 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | roksharoo |
hi guys i wanted to ask a few qustions:
1.where did u read about the upcoming ISB nerf? 2.if fire becomes raideble will the spellfire set be any good? | ||||||||||||
| #1584 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
1. The ISB change is a rumor based on fake patch notes.
However the prevalence of lock/spriest 2s teams in arena and the PvP-centric LT nerf we are discussing lends credence to the idea of another drastic PVE nerf for PvP balance. Its just grist for the mill, as they say. 2. Affliction still shines at T4 (where you'll have FSW) and loses ground once ridiculous amounts of hit, crit and haste start showing up on drops; i.e. late T5 and most of T6/Sunwell. But it is slightly *more* viable, if you have your heart set on the flaming snake of doom. The real question is the converse: Will fire be viable at T4 with Spellfire? Considering the lack of hit and crit on the three peices, and the fact that the spellfire belt locks you out of [Girdle of Ruination] or the 2.4-badge-reward [Belt of Blasting], I'm going to give a preliminary no, but its a bit early to call. Edit: Item Tags Last edited by Fizwidget : 02/25/08 at 10:57 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1585 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
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| #1586 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
I stand corrected. I suppose the [Belt of Blasting] vs. the Spellfire set bonus is where the meat is here. Moreso with the lifetap change.
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| #1587 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | roksharoo |
One more thing about the leo tanking... I haven't yet to get there but i was wandering if the spellstone can remove the staking of the debuff he dose on you? I am sorry if this is stupid its just something that cross my mind
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| #1588 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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Affliction is the DoT tree. If you're in deep destruction, you're also in Demonology. Why would you be casting DoTs at that level of gear/progression? If I cast even just Corruption on Void Reaver I lose DPS and gain too much threat. | ||||||||||||
| #1589 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Quizart |
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The only way to get rid of the debuffs is to either die, or to have a paladin divine intervention on you (which is what we use so we don't have to stop dps waiting for my debuffs to wear off.) Last edited by Quizart : 02/27/08 at 9:53 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1590 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #1591 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Tacitus |
Eyonix confirmed that the Life Tap change was intetional at 16%
WoW Forums -> Imp Lifetap Changed?? I think I'll go cry in a corner now. EDIT: OMFG, IT WAS A ****ING PVP NERF: ![]()
Last edited by Tacitus : 02/25/08 at 2:05 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1592 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
"Quite honestly, we wanted warlocks to take a larger hit to their hit points when lifetapping in PvP. While in PvP, this means they will take a bigger hit to their health, in PvE it will have smaller impact (and actually can be gamed for an improvement via higher intelligence and lower stamina)."
Because we all know how prominent intellect is on our *PVE* set pieces. As well as talents, and buffs etc. | ||||||||||||
| #1593 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
Demonic Embrace now increases the health cost of lifetap by 3/6/9/12/15% (not exactly, but close)
Fel Stamina too. I don't know if I'm going to skip these talents in 2.4, but it illustrates they built warlocks to be a high-stam class that cares little for the size of their mana pool *because* they can convert health to mana. This change is a pretty significant detour from that vision. Stacking stam only requires us to be healed more, making us a healing burden or requiring a sPriest with VE. Now, the more int you have and the less stam over the requirements of the fight, the better you are. This is totally counter-intuitive. Stam is now bad? There has to be a better way to accomplish this PvP fix, without killing my PvE lifetaps. As a warlock my health is way above my mana, thats the way the gear was built. We don't gem for stam (except to activate CSD with Glowing purples) or int, so "Gaming" this isn't really an "advantage". | ||||||||||||
| #1594 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | scottemad123 |
so how is this going to effecting lock tanking gear. Do they plan on changing some itemization around or tweaking fights? I love having around 7.5k mana in my tank gear and only getting 16% of that back when I'll have 13k health and dropping 16% of that per tap. Nice job blizz
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| #1595 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
Stam isn't bad, stacking stam and forgetting int is. You already lose more health per life-tap the more spell damage you get, so it's not like it's anything new to have a higher healing burden as you gear up. The change seems to be in line with the increased emphasis on int for PvE, given how regen is changing to take int into account.
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| #1596 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
On any fight where you lifetap 7 or more times (100/16 = 6.25) you now have net negative HP from stacking STA. Fort is now a debuff for 'locks. As well as the above-mentioned talents.
Stam = bad | ||||||||||||
| #1597 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
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I agree that the new mechanic is wonky at best, but it's not like you're going to want to raid with 6k hp. | ||||||||||||
| #1598 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
So I am correct in assuming that being "gamed" for Int is a DPS loss over other gems, like spell damage.
And I agree, no Warlock is going to want to de-stack Stamina. But it is the only spell/ability that actively gets worse the more you increase a stat. You know what I want to see in a patch note? "Warlocks can no longer enter Battlegrounds or Arenas." | ||||||||||||
| #1599 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Tacitus |
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| #1600 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
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EDIT: Tacitus, in my first sentence, I was gonna add (Except Akama), but decided against it because I know I find myself tapping more than once...haha. | ||||||||||||
| #1601 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Bandoer |
Stam is a detrimental stat after you have enough to survive. Currently extra stam is merely useless or superfluous.
Last edited by Bandoer : 02/25/08 at 4:40 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1602 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
It doesn't matter how many times you lifetap. Say you lifetap three times, it takes away 45% of your health. 55% of 12k hp is more than 55% of 10k hp. Yes, you lose more hp to lifetap as you gain stamina, but it's not like you're in a worse position with 55% of 12k hp vs. 55% of 10k.
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| #1603 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
The key is 7 or more times (which is pretty low for a 7-10 min fight) After 7 times, you've tapped your entire health pool once. At that point you no longer have a net positive effect from stamina.
I'm having trouble trying to illustrate the effect. The amount of health lost goes up for every point in stamina. Your total health pool will be tapped away several times in a fight, if you've tapped your entire health bar, your maximum health is moot. Much like your maximum mana was almost moot because you could lifetap it back at a fixed rate. So any stamina at all above the minimum requirements for a particular fight is bad. Warlock gear stacks absurdly high amounts of stam where spirit may have lived in another class' set. This is an extremely frustrating change. | ||||||||||||
| #1604 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
You can always be hit by more randomly targeted damage than you anticipated, so I don't buy the argument that anything over the minimum is superfluous in a real fight. Stamina will still be important for reasons other than life tap.
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| #1605 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
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| #1606 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Quizart |
While I'm certainly part of the QQ parade on the WoW forums for other reasons on this change, honestly it barely affects pve raiding. I can't remember the last time I wasn't over-healed for a lifetap, healers probably won't notice the difference.
It's in pvp and especially solo/5-man pve that this is really rediculous. But this is a PVE Raiding compendium, can save it for another topic. I'm more off-set pieces than tier 4, and my hp/mana are almost exactly equal raid-buffed, so I won't personally notice much of a difference anyway. Quizart Last edited by Quizart : 02/25/08 at 5:04 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1607 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Tacitus | |||||||||||||
| #1608 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
There wasn't a DPS-increase from stam before. If the change goes in there won't be a DPS-decrease from stam. I don't see much of a change there. Given that, I'd rather have more HPs to survive raid damage. The important part is what %of mana they finally settle on, since that determines if it will be nerfing our mana gained per life tap.
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| #1609 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
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Edit; it will also make farming as destro a lot less fun - currently I sac my voidwalker and run around, using LT to regen mana and the void buff + death coil + soul leech to regen that health deficit. | ||||||||||||
| #1610 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Quizart |
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Now if self-only ISB goes through on the other hand... Quizart | ||||||||||||
| #1611 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Tacitus |
This is offtopic, but Quizart, will you please stop signing your posts, it's annoying, not needed since we can see your name on the left side and as a bonus
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| #1612 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Well, look at some numbers:
chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.2.beta (doesn´t have all SW gear yet) 10205 mana with 518 int +40 arcane intellect +18 imp motw +10% bok => 1734 extra mana 11939 mana *1.03 from Fel Intellect => 12297 total mana 12297*0.15 = 1844 LT With the old values: 1200 => 1540 1300 => 1620 1400 => 1700 1500 => 1780 1600 => 1860 1700 => 1940 Honestly, that might be a slight "mid-game-PvE-nerf" but it doesn´t matter at all in "end-game-PvE". | ||||||||||||
| #1613 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
Shhh if we get it turned into 20% we can have a dps buff =p
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| #1614 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
This is too funny coming from a person with an abnormally large and offtopic signature. Fortunately we can at least turn those off..
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| #1615 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
Don't forget as a Gnome with Sunwell gear you will have another 600 mana, so another 90 mana in your Taps with top gear.
The nerf still is bad, because until you get the stamina weaker Sunwell gear, your Life Taps aren't going to be as good. Another change with this is you don't want 150 HP to chest anymore, more like 6mp5 or 6 to all stats. | ||||||||||||
| #1616 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Devourment |
Honestly I hadn't seen this as anything short of a buff to warlock raiding in general. As it stands currently, I lifetap for ~1670 mana. Full raid buffed, as described above I sit at approximately 12000. 26% of maximum mana (as the notes say lifetap will now restore) of 12000 is over 3000, so I cannot for the life of me see this as an end-game pve nerf. Basically it is a double lifetap. This is a pvp nerf, as all other nerfs/buffs have been in recent and upcoming patches...except this one seems to positively affect pve raiding, for once.
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| #1617 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
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| #1618 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Devourment |
How could they have a typo that terribad? Hahaha wow. And yeah I guess I never really paid attention to my mana in raids (for the reason explained by a previous post) which is most likely closer to 10.5k. Basically my mana returned will be about the same as it is now, and this makes intellect a much more appealing stat.
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| #1619 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses |
For all intents and purposes though, from a raiding perspective, it's cool to have int as a more desirable stat. That said, it'd be cooler if our talents and gear reflected that. The crit and extra mana and mana regen from int makes it quite a bit more desirable...but it's in a shitty state in it's current form. Blah.
Also, 1 is close to 2, and 5 is close to 6, so I guess I could see someone pulling a 26 instead of 15. | ||||||||||||
| #1620 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
I have calculated for myself if I would gain mana or lose with the new lifetap.
It came down to a difference of maybe 50 mana in favor of the new life tap - fully raidbuffed. When playing solo then the new lifetap is a bit worse than the current one I have. For reference, my gear currently consists of mostly tier 6 level gear and some items from ZA / S3 dagger ( Curse archimonde.... ) . What im wondering is if people are considering changing gear / enchants to work around this in pve. Examples : Ring of captured storms , Translucent Spellthread Necklace are becoming nono's ? ( Loop of Cursed Bones as neck alternative, mana attuned band as ring alternative ? ) . Basicly : Are you considering changing out statless items for alternatives with slightly less damage ( if any ) , but more stats to buff your tapping ? +6 all stats seems to be the best investment as chest enchant now as I can see it, +100 mana doesnt seem to be worth 10 mana for 90 hp, 6 mana per 5 gives less mana ( at least for me ) : 1760 mana per lifetap Lifetap needed once per : 1760 / 399 * 2,4 = 10,6 seconds to sustain mana consumption assuming SB spam only. Mana gained per lifetap from +6 all stats enchant : 90 * 1,03 * 1,10 * 0,15 = 15,3 mana In a complete cycle of 12 seconds ( 10,6 + 1,44 from lifetap ) gain from +6 stats = 15,3 From 6 mana per 5 you gain 14,4 mana per 12 seconds The difference is fairly small, but +6 all stats also gives stamina, plus if you use a pet , it scales with it. | ||||||||||||
| #1621 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | SchLing |
The Lifetap change seems to be very good from a raid point of view, and it's pretty clear that Blizzard want int to mean something for warlocks. Even though most of the raiding warlocks out there are currently not really geared for the change I don't think it will take long before most people are geared for the change. Taking a look at the new Tier 6 pieces you can allready see that they have more int than stamina, and I belive that we will see more of that in the future. With this change you could potensially gain more mana back than life sacrificed without any talents. I ran the numbers though Warlock DPS Spreadsheet and from that is was pretty clear that int would now acutally give you quite a lot of DPS increase, and more substained DPS. (From just upping my unbuffed mana pool from 9k to 10k I acutally gained 30DPS on the spreadsheet.)
The Health Talents like Demonic Embrace will still be usefull because you will not have to stack up on Health gear, but you become free to get more int on it instead. In addition 16% of 1000HP is 840, while 16% of 2000HP is 1680. So even if feel that getting more stamina will not make each Lifetap as effective it will still leave you with a bigger HP pool, making you more likely to survive random damage. | ||||||||||||
| #1622 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | TheSorcerer |
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Thank you. | ||||||||||||
| #1623 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
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It was a philosophical point :p, I know how to play my class. What I said is I don't feel like fire is set up to be a 'warlock' element despite what the talent points say because all but two of our spells are school-based in shadow. Call it the misguided dreams of an affliction warlock trapped in a destruction body, I dunno. Last edited by Kyth : 02/26/08 at 6:40 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1624 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
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As for destro pots vs mana pots, same thing, clear winner in mana simply because we go through mana like candy and we don't dps while LTing. And while movement sometimes allows us to Life Tap it's not always safe/sane to do so because most of the time you move out of death's way and moving just to LT is kind of moot point. If there's no death around just a safer place to go, yes, you might want to move while LT gcd is on because you'll have to move anyway at some point. So majority of times I move during LT not LT during movement. ![]()
And again, the fact that LT won't scale anymore until WotLK is the bad part, not the small nerf. Anyone that played a warlock pre-TBC will still remember the fun that was 500 mana/LT that always stayed constant. And if TBC is any indication int scaling between first tier and last tier is small, a lot smaller than +dmg scaling. So we'll yet again start powerfull and while most will upgrade, our LT will stay almost constant providing an ever increasing dps barrier that will keep our dps from scaling enough, that's my nightmare that while I haven't lived to see in Naxx (Pwerk 1st kill was with 5 locks chaining Major Rejuv Pots) I've heard horror stories about. While increasing % would fix it for now it's not enough if they'll keep the same itemization in next expansion or even the same int scaling. I'd pretty much be in favor of 2 ranks, one 15-16% or w/e they want and one (Rank 2, at 60 or so) with exact same formula for mana gain as now just scaled up health cost according to how much hp/mana you have, as in allow low levels to still LT, prevent PvPers from downscaling under 15% hp or so, let PvE-ers keep their scaling. Or, for another option, mana_return= %of_base_mana_(to equal 570 atm) + 0.8 * max(damage_bonuses) hp_cost = max_hp/max_mana * mana_return And you only need 1 rank this way and scale it vs +dmg. Of course if they do change itemization of stats to scale the same way as dmg does (about 40-60% or more from T4 to T6?) without impacting other stats then sure, go ahead and change LT if they can provide us with the gear. Last edited by dakalro : 02/26/08 at 9:12 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1625 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nerull |
Hmm I stand corrected about the raidbuffed mana tap now vs 2.4, it seems that you will need 13k+ to get anywhere near the current lifetaps. A weird change considering this was suppose to be a nerf for pvp.
to make up for the 200 mana you would need to get 20% haste rating, so thats not really likely to happen. Drat, everytime I get excited about getting even a minor buff, it turns out to be a nerf anyway for warlocks | ||||||||||||
| #1626 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Chimera |
Perhaps a mention of how best to use your 2 min potion cooldown does belong in the OP after all.
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However, fights like Supremus, Lurker, Al'ar, Voidreaver, Illidan, and Kael'thas, provide multiple opportunities to safely life tap, where you wouldn't be able to be DPSing the boss anyway. When we were learning Illidan I think the only time I used mana pots was in phase 2. In phase 1 I would use a destro pot, then lifetap to full in the transition between phase 1 and phase 2. In phase 3 onward, I would lifetap immediately following the first fire barage while running to a safe distance, and use destro pots in his humanoid phase (or in phase 5 use destro pots when he goes into a trap). "Mana pot spam is best," works for stand and burn fights, but on more interesting execution fights you need to think about how the fight is going to play out, and pick the potion scheme that fits best with that particular fight. The only T6 fight where I consider mana pot spam mandatory is Kaz'rogal. | ||||||||||||
| #1627 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
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| #1628 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
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Also, why on Earth would you use pots in Illidan phase 1/2, it's not a dps race at all. | ||||||||||||
| #1629 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bogeywoman |
Another thing to ponder is that in the expansion, stamina went up on gear drastically more than int did. I now have 2x the hit points of an old-WoW main tank, buffed, in my survival gear, but I only have 1.4x or so the mana.
So in WotLK, given current gear and trending levels, raiding warlocks will have around 20k hp, and maybe 12k mana, and stam set locks will have 25-28k hp and 10k mana. A lifetap for that latter guy will hit him for 4200 damage and return 1500 mana. | ||||||||||||
| #1630 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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I wouldn't say its mandatory to kill the boss, if that's all you want to do. But if you want to push your max dps you should be chain potting something or another. | ||||||||||||
| #1631 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
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So, you'll get there again, eventually. [E]: Hm, then 18%, still close to 20%! Realised I was counting tailoring robes, and some items are sidegrades with haste. [Edit]: The gnome intellect is a multiplier that applies to your intellect. The intellect of a gnome mage with Blessing of Kings and the +15% intellect arcance talent is (base_int + gear_int) * (1.05 gnome) * (1.1 BoK) * (1.15 talent). This has been tested and verified by me and others. Last edited by Roywyn : 02/26/08 at 6:34 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1632 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Murdoch |
Unless I'm mistaken the Gnomish bonus to Int (+5%) only applies to your base Int, not total. For me this is approximately 300 more mana, not the 600 some are referencing. So it's not as big a difference as you think.
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| #1633 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Chimera |
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That said, Illidan phase 2 is definitely a DPS race. The faster you get out of that phase, the better. I agree that so far in sunwell Brutallus is definitely a mana potion spam fight. I also used them on Kalecgos, although that's mostly just because I copied 20 injectors to test and probably won't be able to use them all up before they take it down. There's a lot of AoE damage flying around on that fight so using mana pots is pretty reasonable, even though there are repositioning times where you could lifetap. It's not like mana potions really cost anything, if you're not using your potion timer for something else, you might as well be using them. | ||||||||||||
| #1634 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
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If there is trinkets/neck/cloak to be had somewhere the stats will most likely increase | ||||||||||||
| #1635 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
So they're going back to the drawing board on the LT changes. Hopefully this was in response to the negative scaling and they will address this with whatever new PvP nerf they are coming up with. Re-itemizing every piece of lock raiding gear and mucking about with several of our talents obviously didn't look attractive.
However, I do remember saying something like "They'll never revamp every other piece of T5 and T6 just to balance FSW" after the Frozen Shadoweave nerf hit the PTR, and was wholeheartedly rejected by the community. https://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/t...ageNo=145#2885 Last edited by Fizwidget : 02/26/08 at 2:29 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1636 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | tedv |
I'd find that surprising, since the human spirit bonus (+10% Spirit) and tauren health bonus (+5% stamina) are both to overall stats, not base stats.
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| #1637 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
lol I like how we create a 145 page post about a 2-3% dps nerf in a matter of days.. Makes me feel that they could never in a million years sneak in a real warlock nerf.. The imp sb change won't happen if they can't get a pve lifetap nerf through. I have a feeling this is gonna come back at 15% health for 20% mana and will actually end up as a buff.
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| #1638 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Nah, I have no issues with the Imp SB nerf if it comes with a very juicy Shadow Priest nerf. Inci has already been put ahead of SB for next patch and furthermore it even has a much more stable dps outcome, only based on crit and not ISB uptime, ISB uptime luck, itchy finger shadow priests and crit . Even with 1 ISB/lock SB dps is still more luck prone.
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| #1639 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
Put ahead by not enough to offset the loss of shadow priest dps/utility.. I personally don't want to loot a new cape and pay for a sunfire enchant.
Yes I realize the imp sb nerf would almost exclusively affect spriest dps, but there are many a retard out there that won't see it this way and block any attempt to make such a change. Plus if mages ever all switched out of fire(like say.. if their mana regen was good enough to be arcane) both our options would be gimped all of a sudden. Also why would you want spriests to be nerfed? They don't compete with us on raid spots.. They are a utility class we are a dps class. My conclusion: PvE Warlocks are unnerfable if we end up with a PvE lifetap buff. | ||||||||||||
| #1640 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Amonette |
An ISB nerf would just clear up muddy waters as to which is better fire/shadow.
As for LT, I could see a single % coming in, as in "Converts 15% of your total Hp into mana." | ||||||||||||
| #1641 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
That would also be pretty awesome, although I am pretty sure they will still keep the pvp nerf portion in. All I really care about is getting as much or more mana back per-tap then I did before, don't care if it is less efficient. Your way, my way, 18 or 20%.., all upgrades. I mean the only way this will not work out for the better at this point is if they revert to live values and lower the coefficient.(lowered coefficient was the original change in those notes ages ago)
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| #1642 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Mallahet | |||||||||||||
| #1643 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
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Oh boy was I dead then, really, really meant buff ) Last edited by dakalro : 02/27/08 at 2:22 AM. Reason: stupidity | ||||||||||||
| #1644 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
We all know in wotlk we will be back to affliction until we get mid range gear again then switch to destro (or maybe demo).. There is no way affliction will ever be the best as long as it scales so horrible with haste/crit/hit. Until they make dots scale 100% with crit/haste it will be a broken tree.
Oh and shadow priests need a utility nerf not a dps nerf. ![]()
1. Healers can't afford to heal you. 2. That marginal dps upgrade (like 2 shadowbolts on a 6minute fight) might actually make the difference between winning and wiping. Last edited by Flamingcloud : 02/26/08 at 3:13 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1645 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Chaley | |||||||||||||
| #1646 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
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| #1647 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
The fact you go through mana like candy is completely irrelevant for the potion choice. Assuming you actaully can't lifetap for "free", it depends wether 100 mp5 gives you more than having extra damage and crit on a couple spells every 2 minutes. While the answer is still "100 mp5 will give you more" it has nothing to do with the mana consumption, it has to do with the amount of damage lost by spending X duration on lifetaps being a bigger loss than the extra spell dmg/crit from the destruction potion.
Going oom doesn't immidiately mean more mana is better. It might, but the fact you go oom is far from enough to determine the usefullness of extra mana. What you can do with that extra mana VS what you lose to get that mana is what really matters. | ||||||||||||
| #1648 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ frmorrison |
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I am interested to see the new Life Tap when it comes. | ||||||||||||
| #1649 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
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...of course that very well may not matter next patch. I eagerly await a version of lifetap that does not have negative scaling. I fully expect it to be a heinous nerf for at least PvP, and possibly PvE, and I really can't say I blame them. | ||||||||||||
| #1650 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
As I edited my 1st post above also, I actually meant buff but think i was kinda sleeping back when I wrote that I even had no idea why people kept telling me I shouldn't wish for nerfs
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| #1651 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | alhill |
One thing I am curious about in WOTLK is whether deep demo locks will still be running around in two piece t5. The health link scales perfectly and could theoretically be used for many expansions to come. If Blizzard does not provide similar gear with the same function, deep demo locks may find t5 to be superior even taking into account the inferior stats.
Same issue with mage 2 piece t5, actually, which also scales perfectly, particularly if arcane at some point in the future becomes the "it" build for mages, like fire is now. I'm sure there's some other sets that may also have useful and scaleable bonuses at a relatively low "number of pieces of gimp gear" cost. I know some of the old pre-BC raiding sets had useful and scaleable bonuses, but none of the best bonuses were available at a cost of only two pieces. I am interested to see what happens in the expansion with some of these raiding sets. | ||||||||||||
| #1652 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | gunit12 |
Gear/Gem Selection
I was considering regemming my gear from spell dmg/crit gems to pure spell dmg gems, but am worried about my spell crit... will it be too low? Also any other general gearing tips would be appreciated. My guild is just starting the first few bosses in MH and BT.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Staghelm&n=Kut | ||||||||||||
| #1653 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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There's a chance that they'll keep the set bonuses around but I highly doubt it. I think Blizzard made a strong effort to ensure that no piece of pre-TBC equipment would be irreplaceable in the expansion. There are a few items from pre-TBC that continue to be useful (I'm looking at you, BWL trinkets) but I don't think that any of them are necessary/irreplaceable. Just my .02. | ||||||||||||
| #1654 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
It is gonna take some mighty powerful items to offset 4pc t6 for a destro lock. Belt/Bracer/Shoulder/Boot together takes about 32% of your item budgeting(and result in much less than 32% of your final stats..) So for an item to overtake those stats +6% increase on all stats(and base).. It might take items in those slots double the stats of each of those pieces.
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| #1655 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
I haven't seen any discussion about the changes to the MSD metagem.. so I put together some back of the envelope math.
Old MSD - chance to have the next spell cast at 50% cast time. - Spreadsheet shows me getting a proc every 57.31s with my toon's 2.37s shadowbolt. - This means 1 shadowbolt at 1.5s every 57.31s. - You could call this a 36.7% haste buff for 1.5s (since we're currently capped by the GCD at 1.5s). - 36.7% haste = 576 haste rating. So 576 haste rating * (1.5 / 57.31) = average 15.1 haste rating over the 57.31 seconds. New MSD - 4 sec buff of 320 haste. - My 2.37s shadowbolt becomes a 1.87s shadowbolt. - Assume the proc chance stays the same.. 15% chance, 45s cooldown.. still getting 1 proc every 57.31 seconds. - However, since my new shadowbolt is 1.87s and the buff is a flat 4s, I can start 3 casts within that 4s window. 1.87 * 3 = 5.61s of effective buff. - The new MSD buff is a confirmed 320 haste rating So 320 haste rating * (5.61 / 57.31) = average 31.3 haste rating over the 57.31 seconds. --- Is this the right way to calculate the value of the meta? I think there's great potential for this to be quite a bit better than the old one (despite the pissing and moaning from a huge chunk of the community)... I'm not sure it will outpace the CSD for destro locks but there's a very likely chance that it will be better for afflic and demo specced locks. | ||||||||||||
| #1656 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Assuming you are chaincasting, it'll be very difficult to get 3 casts in that 4 second window, given that the proc will go off midcast a lot of the time. | ||||||||||||
| #1657 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1658 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be chaincasting shadowbolts as a destro lock. Presumably you could ensure that you always have 1200 mana so that if an MSD proc happens you have the mana for 3 straight shadowbolts. If you really wanted to ensure effective use of the meta, you could try to perform all of your tapping needs during the 45s "hidden cooldown" so that the meta never procs off a tap (meaning wasting part of the haste buff on a GCD). I tried to calculate a haste rating number instead of a flat percentage increase because the value of haste rating can be scaled with the amount of tapping done within the 57s window. The more taps you perform within that window, the less the haste rating increases your personal DPS. | ||||||||||||
| #1659 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj |
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- Leotheras demon form tanking in FR gear - Capernian tanking in FR gear - Bloodboil felrage (nobody lifetaps during felrage but just mentioning it for completeness) - RoS phase 2 - Mother Shahraz in SR gear - Illidan demon form tanking in SR gear - Twin Eredar tanking (unconfirmed, going by videos on this one) Its easy to say that the extra healing burden will be covered by HoTs & overhealing when all content is on farm. Imagine if there were a boss like Shahraz in sunwell, would you feel confident taking locks with a 2:1 hp to mp ratio in SR gear for a healing intensive fight with a mana burn component? Hope Blizz can come up with a fair scaling mechanism on PTR soon. | ||||||||||||
| #1660 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
Even if you got perfect world 3 cast every MSD proc, 31.3haste is significantly worse than CSD for destro still. Assuming your numbers are correct anyways.. Not to mention a much harder meta requirement imo(ie all red one blue, instead of mix of reds/yellows/blues)
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| #1661 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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If you want to see how much of a DPS increase it would be to determine if its worth the time/money/effort, plug your current stats and then your new damage gem stats into the spreadsheet and see what you get. I ran with 19 paper doll crit for awhile when I first switched to 21/40 and was still out-DPSing the more conventional "destro needs crit" locks because they had gimped spell damage. As far as ISB contribution, crit rating has such a bad point to percent ratio that gemming for crit really is going to have a minimal impact on your ISB contribution. | ||||||||||||
| #1662 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1663 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | richard |
From the 2.4 changes topic: Lifetap now drains 5% of maximum health to return 15% of maximum mana.
This seems like a PvP buff to me, and a PvE nerf. A raiding warlock generally has about 10k mana so the return is just a flat 1.5k. The heavily reduced health cost is pretty strange, considering pretty much everyone thought it was being nerfed because of PvP, but 5% health is negligible most of the time. | ||||||||||||
| #1664 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
It's a completely bizarre change, seeing as some blue (Eyonix maybe?) posted that they wanted warlocks to take a bigger hit for life-tapping in PvP. Either that was just a lie, or they changed their minds, or this new LT version is a bug. Personally, losing 600hp to gain 1.5k mana seems ridiculous.
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| #1665 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Keyne |
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| #1666 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | zerdell |
I think you misunderstand the nature of warlock tanking. Warlocks are used to tank bosses in resist phases, stacking high fire / shadow / whatever resist gear. What this means is that the damage you take is quite bursty. You might completely resist 3 attacks in a row, then be hit by two for full damage. Given this, and given that you can't predict when this will happen, life tapping is extremely risky. Any change that makes you have to life tap more often, for more health lost is extremely risky.
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| #1667 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Keyne |
I understand that there is additional risk associated with more hurtful lifetaps, but my point remains that it is mitigated a lot by the fact that you are the center of the healers' attention.
Last edited by Keyne : 02/27/08 at 11:37 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1668 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Amonette |
Life tap rank 1 : Coverts 5% of maximum health into 5% of maximum mana.
Life tap rank 2 : Coverts 12% of maximum health into 12% of maximum mana. Life tap rank 3 : Coverts 20% of maximum health into 20% of maximum mana. So all that feedback was for nothing. Stam still scales negatively. The last rank is bugged from what I can see, it gives only 15% mana. | ||||||||||||
| #1669 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Faldrath |
Stam scales negatively, but it's not so bad as it was, at least for PvE. I'm destro, and I currently LT for 1626 (completely unbuffed numbers, 9806HP/8755MP). If it's 20%, I'll lose 1961 health but gain 1751 mana.
And, to be honest, in my experience, whenever I lifetap I usually get a renew and/or a lifebloom almost immediately in most fights. I imagine it'll be more crippling for PvP (which I don't really do), since there isn't much healing to spare, but for raiding locks this isn't too bad. | ||||||||||||
| #1670 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
Also worth noting is that there are epic versions of the haste, haste/stm, haste/dmg gems. Looks like that'll lighten the load on spinel supplies as well as give us a slight dps increase.
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| #1671 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Amonette | |||||||||||||
| #1672 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Dalus |
CoR
My guild normally raids with 3 Warlocks (usually one of each spec) and 4-5 Melee DPS. (not including the 2-3 tanks.) The warlocks refuse to put up Curse of Recklessness up under any circumstances, claiming that the gain is too minor to be worth the additional damage risk to the tank and/or to be used instead of CoA/CoD. From what I can see with the numbers, this appears to be groundless. Are they correct, is CoR sub-optimal here, or are they just being stubborn?
(P.S. My guild is working on both Vashj and Kael ATM, everything else at that level is on farm, to give you an idea of the boss situations we'd use it for.) | ||||||||||||
| #1673 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj | |||||||||||||
| #1674 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
There's a thread on CoR and Amp/Damp magic over here When to use CoR, Amplify/Dampen Magic?
There's some empirical evidence that one fully talented Demo Shout will take a boss to zero AP, even with CoR up, which means that there is no drawback at all under those situations. If that is not the case, quite simply, it's not for the warlocks to decide on their own. If the tank/healers agree that they can take some additional damage without realistically increasing the chance of being insta-gibbed, then use CoR. 860 Armor Penetration on four to five melee will outdamage CoD, as long as the melee are assigned to the CoR target and pulling their weight. | ||||||||||||
| #1675 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
I'd be quite happy with a 20%-20% rank as it basically brings lifetap to the same as it was at the T6 level before in terms of mana efficiency and opens the way for future scaling that separates efficiency and damage output. That was what quite a few people pointed out, so it can hardly be said that they didn't listen.
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| #1676 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
Is anyone able to get ranks 2 and 3 of life tap? I'm stuck with rank 1 only and the others aren't showing up on trainers.
EDIT: On test. | ||||||||||||
| #1677 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
I wasn't able to. There seems to be some discrepancy across test realms. I don't know if it a difference in PvE versus PvP, or US versus EU.
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| #1678 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gumibear |
I'm on US PVE and only have rank 1. =(
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| #1679 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
Okay, now that Life Tap has been scaled up to 20% mana, whats the current DPS value of Intelligence against +damage, given that Int increases crit% and lowers Life Tap frequency.
I'd also be very curious how the new Ember Skyfire Diamond meta compares to CSD with the changes to Life tap. Ember Skyfire is +14 Spell damage and +2% intellect. Last edited by Pidge : 02/28/08 at 4:53 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1680 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
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Regarding the change in general: I think it's okay. Warlocks will be at a disadvantage on fights like mother or RoS, sure, but we're an advantage of Kaz'Rogal. I think you have to look at both sides. 20% is generous, meaning T6 doesn't see a dps hit (although we probably will from what we could have had in Sunwell gear) and lower-geared locks see a dps boost. They did listen, multiple ranks exist for pvp and for tanking. Down the road I think it will make it easier to balance lock gear and scaling because lifetap is more fixed (I was convinced by a few folks that a scaling lifetap isn't actually a good design from Blizzard's perspective.) I am concerned a bit about how this works with levelling-up gear (from 1, not from 70) and various gear levels for soloing. In the end I think that, if you accept that they wanted something that scaled so pvp took a bigger stamina hit, it was going to look something like this anyways so this may be the best we can hope for. I'm not convinced it's as terrible with respect to stamina as the PTR forums would like to make it out to be. There's plenty of other stats (like haste!) which, while you get something out of them, you also lose something and don't get "full" efficiency out of them (for haste, it's that we have to go into mana-regen mode more often.) | ||||||||||||
| #1681 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ruaduun |
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Cant coment on the other fights though since we're not there yet. | ||||||||||||
| #1682 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Gensil |
[Bracing Earthstorm Diamond]
Can anyone explain why this would be a good gem for a lock ? I was having this discussion in our guild as well as i saw a lock with this gem in his headslot and subtlety on cloak. from what i remember is that threat enhancements dont stack. it has probably been discussed but 68 are alot of pages to troll trough during work so sorry for repeating a question if it is already answered | ||||||||||||
| #1683 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | whi |
As far as i know they do actually stack, but its multiplicative. Anyways it was probably an affliction lock that didnt want to regem his gear to meet requirements of other meta's.
Swift Starfire Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft - 2 x yellow Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft - 2 x blue | ||||||||||||
| #1684 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj |
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Both versions scale (current - 80% of sdmg, ptr - 20% of max hp) Both versions cause an increasing hp penalty per lifetap as you gear up ( damage & stamina both increase as one moves up the tiers) Both versions scale with buffs (fort, wrath of air, flasks..) The difference is that the current version has a direct correlation between hp lost & mp gained whereas the PTR version scales off two independent stats. Its like taxing someone based on hours worked but paying them based on the hours spent watching TV. | ||||||||||||
| #1685 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Nfariessence |
So, assuming that the 20% max health for 20% max mana change goes live, does this mean that [Ember Skyfire Diamond] becomes a viable replacement for [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond]? Can someone better than me (and who has full access to the armory/WoW at the moment) do the math on this.
~ Chaotic gives you 14 crit rating and 3% more crit damage. I have about 25% crit from gear and 1500 spell damage self buffed. My observed crit rate is something around 33% with an elemental shaman and 1650ish spell damage while raid buffed, and my SB crits usually range from 6.5k - 9k (yes I get freak 11k crits as well, but it's not a common occurrence). That means I get 0.63% more crit and my crits hit for ~232 more damage, right? ~ Ember gives you 14 straight up spell damage, which itemizes better than crit on a point-for-point basis, but it also gives us 2% more Int which means about 46 more mana per life tap, or a free SB every 10 taps. This is slightly further complicated by the fact that the color gem requirements of the Ember are much friendlier than they are on Chaotic. If I switched to Ember I could trade out the 2 [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst]s that I have for 2 more [Runed Crimson Spinel]s for an extra 12 spell damage. | ||||||||||||
| #1686 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Ralask |
Would love some of the expert theorycrafters to take a look at the new 54 hit alch trinket. With the new lifetap changes I think drinking mana pots might become needed. Wondering if that trinket is going to replace icon or hex lord.
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| #1687 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bleeni |
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| #1688 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | richard |
With SP gear it's very easy to go under the spellhit cap (as opposed to BT/MH loot where it's very easy to go over), so the trinket might be worth it.
I'd imagine a warlock with best-in-slot items from SP would have to gem for some spellhit to stay at the cap (But I haven't really looked at any numbers). Edit: (aimed at the alchemy trinket post) | ||||||||||||
| #1689 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Caffeine |
Most warlocks are already chain-potting super mana on most longer fights. The new trinket is somewhat interesting for warlocks, but on some fights it seems better to use destruction potions, the trinket then loses much of its worth and I don't really see a possibility to build two gear sets around using and not using the trinket.
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| #1690 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Modez |
I know this is pretty newb question, but I'm leveling a lock and was wondering, once I hit 70, the guild I'm going to be raiding with is starting t5 instances.. I was wondering on the meta gem choice, I'm obviously going to be starting affli mainly because the lack of gear and the fact that I'm going to be either 1 of 1 warlock or 1 of 2 warlocks raiding. What would be the best starting meta for an affli lock, also including the recent changes to life tap? I was looking at the 14 spell dmg 2% int gem, and was thinking that was probably the best way to go but I would like confirmation.
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| #1691 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
Hooray for massive lifetap buff.. Lifetapping for 2200-2600 mana is going to be sweet. Haste affecting it aswell.. Going to be lifetapping like 40 less than on live.
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| #1692 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
Can't find the answer for this elsewhere and I don't have the pieces to test it: will the 2-piece T5 bonus heal a phase-shifted imp? I'd like an answer from someone who actually has the pieces and has tried it.
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| #1693 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar | |||||||||||||
| #1694 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
Yes it does, and yes it's completely useless at 100% overhealing.
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| #1695 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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As far as the trinket, 40% increased pottage means if you're using every pot cd, that bonus can be considered 40mp5 (if using Supers). It scales from there (ie using pots every 4mins would be 20mp5, etc). | ||||||||||||
| #1696 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | erikdsn |
0/40/21 vs 7/43/11 (succy vs. felguard)
My question is multifacted:
• I lose out on Imp Corr, should I go 5/35/21 instead of 0/40/21 for succubus spec (or also get imp lifetap) • Is a succubus way too squishy to raid with? • Has anyone actually compared the 2? • I know Affliction is the best for dps, pre-BT, but I hate keeping track of 5 dots. • I'm at work, so I cant make this initial post very long I just hit 70, but I will prolly gear up pretty fast, my guild is raiding BT/Hyjal, my main is a feral druid. So, this question may seem a bit noob. I asked the locks in my guild and nobody seems to have tried it. | ||||||||||||
| #1697 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
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| #1698 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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I figure that 54 hit is equal to 54 haste on the margin (since you can trade them equally via gemming), which puts it equal to about 70 spell damage for me. I don't have the hexhead, so I plan to use Skull + Crusade with a 12% hit set (currently I have 12.5% hit, which will drop to about 12.2 once I get my last 2 pieces of t6), and swap in the new trinket as needed. On another note, I got a working Recap on the PTR. Here's some real world fire spec testing: ImageShack - Hosting :: 24firetestdx4.jpg 1372 dps with just self buffs and a lousy 15% crit rate.....definitely seems on par with shadow. | ||||||||||||
| #1699 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
A soul-linked imp takes damage via soul-link. 2-piece T5 can be used to heal the pet through any incidental damage taken via soul-link without ever having to break phase shift. My average fight dps is on the order of 1500; 15% healing means 225 healing per second to the pet. Imp takes 20% of my damage via soul-link. Imp has ~3500 hp buffed so I'd need to take 17,500 damage to one-shot him (which will kill me anyway). 1125 dps against me will counter the 225 hps that I give the imp through 2-piece T5. It seems unlikely under most circumstances that a soul-linked imp would die from soul-link if I have 2-piece T5.
I'm in a position where I'm seriously considering a 1/39/21 spec for the threat reduction from the imp. I'm currently 0/21/40 and produce massive amounts of damage and threat relative to the rest of my guild. It's exceptionally rare for me to be #1 on dps by a margin less than 20% and it's not uncommon to have 2x the damage of the person in the #2 spot. Even with a prism of inner calm equipped and with well timed soulshatters I'm still riding the threat ceiling (and hosing my dps) on at least 75% of the boss encounters* that we regularly run... it's especially bad with our warrior tank and pally tank, the bear is the only tank that can out-threat me under most circumstances. Given this, I ran numbers through the spreadsheet assuming 2.3 values (so no GCD improvements, which will benefit the imp spec much more in this case): My 0/21/40 spec gives me the following two options: not threat capped: shadow destro with immolate = 1961 dps threat capped: shadow destro with immo + prism = 1902 dps and 1605 tps The 1/39/21 spec would give me the following two options: not threat capped: 1/39/21 with succy and soul-link = 1957 dps threat capped: 1/39/21 with imp and soul-link, no prism = 1824 dps and 1345 tps (the ultra rare situation where I can have my imp attack = 2169 dps and 1345 tps ... I don't plan on ever being able to do this) The damage difference for non-threat capped situations is negligible, assuming I can keep the succy alive in a corner somewhere. For threat capped situations, I lose 78 dps in exchange for a loss of 255 tps. I have to lose 4.1% casting time with the destro spec to holding back for threat in order for it to lose damage relative to the imp-demo spec. As a side effect (NOT my primary motivation for this) looking forward to the new lifetap changes.. using some rough numbers here: assume my toon has 10000 hp. The imp will increase my hp by about 1000, so 11000. My effective health pool is 20% more than that as a result of soul-link: 13200. However, my lifetaps will only cost 20% of 11000 or 2200 hp per tap. Assume 20 taps in a fight, that's 44,000 hp that needs to be healed. A warlock with an actual health pool of 13,200 will tap for 2640 requiring 52,800 healing. It's a minor difference, but worth mentioning I suppose. * Fights where I have to hold back due to threat: hydross tidewalker leotheras voidreaver solarian kael vashj eagle boss timed ZA bear boss timed ZA lynx boss timed ZA zul'jin rage winterchill hyjal trash - worth noting given our current progression Fights where I don't have to hold back: lurker karathress dragonhawk boss timed ZA You're probably thinking I'm crazy for considering this. You probably think our tanks should generate more threat and I agree. In the meantime, I'm not sure what other option I have other than spamming rank 1 spells trying to get crits for negative threat from my prism. Last edited by Idk : 02/28/08 at 3:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1700 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
All I can say is bear tank FTW . Our MT is a bear tank & I have to hold back at times, but he allows me to keep rolling out bolts one after another.
We also use a couple of prot tanks and a prot pally for OT needs. The same just cannot be said here. I'm easily threat capped "making a sandwhich" ... | ||||||||||||
| #1701 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
Yea, unless you're doing somthing like casting CoD instead of a debuff curse, imp w/ the 2pct5 would probably be the best way to dump more threat. Interesting that I hadn't thought of that before, thanks for the tip.
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| #1702 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj |
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Hydross, Leo, Zuljin have aggro resets, if you are pulling aggro on those then its just bad timing on your part. On fights like rage winterchill & tidewalker a couple of misdirects in addition to the time spent not dpsing (running out of death & decay, watery grave, aoeing murlocs) should give tanks enough of a head start. On Tidewalker, Hydross & Hyjal trash we give the warlocks tranquil air in addition to salv so they can aoe earlier. If you raid with a good number of shaman this would be a good option. | ||||||||||||
| #1703 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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2. Hydross, Leo, Zul'jin: yes, these bosses have aggro resets but you're mistaken if you believe that the aggro reset is the only time you can pull. I can get to the top of the threat chart after spending the first chunk of a phase seeding exclusively off of hydross herself. Phases 2, 4, and 5 of zul'jin I have to hold back considerably. Same with each leo phase. Pulling aggro at the beginning of a phase is not the issue (I understand how that _can_ be a problem, it's just not a problem for me). The math, simplified: destro warlock A generates X amount of damage which causes Y amount of threat. imp-demo warlock B generates X amount of damage which causes Y * .80 amount of threat. In any threat capped fight or phase, warlock B has the _potential_ to do up to 25% more damage than warlock A before pulling aggro. Phased fights _especially_ benefit from passive threat reductions because the soulshatter cooldown makes it so that you can rarely use soulshatter in more than 1 phase (out of 5 in the case of Zul'jin, for example). 3. I recognize that many of these fights involve movement but I'm telling you matter-of-fact: on these fights, in my guild with my players and my tanks, I end up threat-capped.. even if I have to run or tap or whatever. I recognize that many of these scenarios prevent other locks from reaching the threat ceiling, I just don't find that to be the case for me and my situation. | ||||||||||||
| #1704 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
I don't see how you get improved imp without significantly gimping yourself. While shadow embrace, having an imp out and malediction are the only real reasons to even go affliction in the first place, improving that imp just costs too much - at best you will be losing range, anything else will be losing DPS.
To illustrate: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft the only talents you could argue are in the first 3 tiers of affliction, but you can only swap those to other talents within the first 3 tiers of affliction, which do not include improved imp. Anything from the 4th tier and above is pretty much a must-have for affliction raiding. 17 in destruction is also required for every warlock. Unless you want to give up range and/or dps you cannot put more than the 1 leftover point in improved imp, and even that may be better off in Intensity or maybe even CoEx. 3/3 improved imp is not possible with a viable build. The tank will live with 14 less stamina better than you managing with 2% less shadow damage to the raid if you take out malediction, 2% less damage reduction if you drop points from shadow embrace or if you lose range by dropping either of the range talents (range=survivability+dps). Even if for some reason you have such insane gear (T6++) that malediction/ruin becomes a better build for DPS, then having to pick ruin means you're at the exact same position. In fact, you'll have 2 free points instead of 1, but will only have 2/5 contagion (3% less damage to corruption - remember to take that into account when comparing UA to ruin on the spreadsheet!). Bottom line if you think an affliction warlock should have improved imp, you probably didn't look at the talent calculator carefully enough, or just don't care about anything other than 14 more stamina on the tank. Note that I say 14 becuase if you really want improved imp you can put your last point in there having 1/3 which already gives 7s tam out of the 21 you'd get from 3/3 improved imp. | ||||||||||||
| #1705 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj |
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1. Being imp demo will result in a significant loss in damage from not having DS-Succi & SnF that the 20% passive threat reduction might become a moot point (except on probably VR). 2. Your numbers seem way off for the gear that you have. If you are that worried about aggro try felguard spec. Its pretty competitive in all T5 content & early-mid T6 content. | ||||||||||||
| #1706 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
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2. I thought so as well. When I put her gear in 2.0 beta 4, and turned on all grp buffs (Elem totems, Moonkin, Spriest, Malediction CoS, casting CoD + SB only, chaining super manas, full consumables, etc), I get the numbers quoted. However, I'd be extremely surprised to see that performance actually achieved anywhere. I have very similar gear (more dmg, less crit), and I get 1.2-1.4k (actual. ~1.7-1.9 in xls) dps in that situation. Which again points to a post I made in the spreadsheet thread, where I questioned why the xls so over-estimates real world performance at the high, buffed out the wazoo gear level. Last edited by LockApologist : 02/28/08 at 6:07 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1707 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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Felguard spec is a great spec and I've used it many times in the past. I have no doubt that it produces more damage and helps alleviate my threat problems. However, for progression content I just don't feel comfortable enough using it right now (especially since I don't have the VST and I only have 1-piece T5). Anyway, you don't have to like my proposed spec. I was originally just asking about whether 2-piece T5 affected the phase-shifted imp.. and then felt the need to defend myself against the onslaught (all 2 replies =P) suggesting that there's no possible scenario under which that might be useful. | ||||||||||||
| #1708 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
So Incinerate is looking like it's going to beat up Shadow Bolt on personal DPS. So assuming ISB doesn't change in 2.4, will it be more effective to have your Affliction lock be the only one applying ISB as the other locks wouldn't be eating up charges with Incinerate.
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| #1709 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | makotospeaks |
I'd love to know the same thing, as i near 70 with my lock i was sorta depressed about having to spam SB's eventually for maximum DPS when Fire is imo a bit more interesting. My only thought is that i hear Fire mages are harder to come by later on...where as Shadow priests are not(talking of course about their debuffs that effect our damage fire vs shadow)
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| #1710 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vagabond |
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I will say this. If I wanted to be a fire nuke casting, 6k hp (fictional min/maxing to maximize output due to current lifetap stupidity) cloth caster, I would have made a mage. I would really love to once again be a "dot everything up and live while those around me slowly rot or get eaten by my pet" class. But gear and talents.... you know the drill. O well, at least I can still be a shadowmage.... And casting 2 spells the whole fight means more forum time, even on new content! | ||||||||||||
| #1711 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rouger |
i was talking to lock in my guild and we talked about 2.4 damage and gear. so the big problem we were talking about is UA. yes we know that UA is not the best damage spec but it nice to up the raid damage and help the tank. so i think for a UA lock they should look for Haste and damage over other stuff. then destruction should look into damage and crit. the lock i was talking about this was saying no no the other way around witch i think is not good.
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| #1712 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | atvrider450r |
dps spreadsheet
Long time reader, first time poster have a question regarding the dps spreadsheet
I personally use Leulier spreadsheet and love it, but a couple of my warlock friends, use maxdps.com and i was just curious what you guys think about maxdps. It seem to calc more dps then Leulier's does, so im not sure if it as good as the same. | ||||||||||||
| #1713 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | SRneo |
Hey guys, I just had a few questions about this "new" incinerate. Now, I know the casting time has been reduced by 10% but I also heard that the spell dmg coefficient is going to be raised a bit too. Is this true?
Now, I know for now Incinerate and Shadowbolt are pretty much on par for eachother with personal DPS, but: If Imp. Shadowbolt does indeed get nerfed to 15% with the charges only being able to be consumed by your own Shadowbolts, which one edges out the other? My other question is should locks go incinerate if this happens? I mean, the high end mages I know of are predominately Arcane, so there isn't anyone to put scorch up. So maybe this Imp. Shadowbolt nerf does lower raid dps, but if no one is there to put scorch up, should we still go Incinerate? | ||||||||||||
| #1714 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
I've heard nothing about a coefficient buff for incinerate. Decreasing the cast time will give a relative coefficient boost in the same way that bane does, but no word of anything other than that.
There's also no indication the ISB changes will go through. If it does go through a couple of things change. If you have a lot of shadowpriests, and high haste, your personal ISB uptime might go up instead of down. On the other hand, since it's only your personal DPS and not the raid that's affected any more, it's okay to go fire if that ends up being more damage overall. Without that change, grab a spreadsheet that has raid ISB damage estimation. That way you can see if the higher personal dps is costing the raid or not. It might not if you have other shadow destro locks, and your shadow preists don't nuke. Improved Scorch should be up, because your mages should be fire. Arcane died in 2.3(?). | ||||||||||||
| #1715 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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Just use your better judgement, on a lot of fights its impossible to keep the boss fully debuffed the whole time and it can still result in some nasty spike damage on occasion (IE Azgalor or Mother) - but 99% of the time it is going to be safe to keep it up. Last edited by Ammanas : 02/29/08 at 4:35 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1716 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Mugorim |
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This is how I usually do a raid focused affliction build Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (tiers 1-3 subject to change) I've yet to see any fights where more than 1/2 points in each of the ranged talents is all that crucial. Anything you'd want to avoid usually has a max range of around 30yrds. | ||||||||||||
| #1717 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Varbaro |
shadow vs fire destro after 2.4
With 1k spelldmg ( just change it to another one)
Shadow and Flame(20%) & Emberstorm(10%) & CoS/CoE ( 10% - w/o Malediction - 13%) & Shadow Weaving (10%) / Imp. Scorch (15%) & Misery (5%) Shadowbolt ((541-603) + (1000*0.81*1.2))/*1.1/1.13)*1.1)*1.05 = 1922.26/1974.69-2001/2055.6 (653.8/671.7 DPS w/o Bane and 784.6/806 DPS with Bane) Incinerate (/w Immol. up) ((555-642) + (1000*0.71)*1.2)*1.10)/*1.1/1.13)*1.15)*1.05 = 2055.7/2111.8-2125.8/2242.3 (836.3/870.8 DPS) With ISB buff (20%). ((541-603) + (1000*x)*y)*1.2) = 2306.7/2369.6 - 2401.2/2466.7 ( 784.6/806 w/o Bane 821.56/967.2 with Bane) After 2.4 incinerate cast time will 2.25sec with 5/5 Emberstorm. Formula same, DPS: (941.5/967.5 DPS) So max DPS after 2.4 with all: SB - 967.2 Inci - 967.5 UPDATE I re edited all, because i counted wrong! Last edited by Varbaro : 02/29/08 at 1:19 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1718 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
It's sort of pointless to compare at 1k spell damage. Apparently SB does 967 dps. In raids I can do 2300 dps & have 1700 spell damage.
Really, Leulier's spreadsheet should be all you need. Though it's hard to input the effect of immolate, as keeping it up will be annoying and a drain on your overall dps. | ||||||||||||
| #1719 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
Immolate actually should have a higher DPCT than Incinerate when you spec into fire. So it's a DPS increase to use it yourself.
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| #1720 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Presarc |
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| #1721 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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2) Check ruin dps by removing UA from casts and setting Ruin to 1. Note DPS somewhere. 3) Check UA dps by adding UA to casts and setting Ruin to 0. Note DPS somewhere. 4) Compare the two numbers. | ||||||||||||
| #1722 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
Shadow Bolt has a 86% coefficent, 106% with SnF. Incinerate has a 71% coefficient, 91% with SnF.
So, it's still all wrong Try Leulier's spreadsheet. As for UA vs. Ruin - UA is better at early gear levels, Ruin better at later gear levels. Reason being that Ruin scales better with at least crit, haste, hit. Do what the above poster said. Making 2 copies of a sheet is a good idea as well, you can spec UA in one and Ruin in the second. Or compare gear choices. Last edited by Roywyn : 02/29/08 at 3:52 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1723 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Presarc |
Assuming 1200 shadow damage, 16% hit, 20% crit, UA is better than Ruin by a factor of 2.53% dps (1317 vs 1283) assuming full-duration on all dots and CoA.
Assuming 1500 shadow damage, 1300 fire damage, 16% hit, 20% crit, UA is better than Ruin by a factor of 2.25% dps (1532 vs 1497) assuming full-duration on all dots and CoA. So it looks like for you affliction warlocks, no matter how well-geared, UA is the way to go over Ruin. EDIT: Just to be complete, I changed the crit chance from 20% to 25%, and the respective percentages (instead of what they are above) were 1.01% and 0.78% in favor of UA. Changing the crit percentage to 30% and assuming 16% hit and 1200 or 1500s/1300f damage, Ruin finally took the cake, but it would be difficult as affliction to gear this high into crit without the help of backlash and still maintaining 1500 shadow damage. If someone could double-check my numbers, that would be good. Last edited by Presarc : 02/29/08 at 4:40 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1724 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
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Obviously what makes Ruin so much better than uA is hit & if your hit capped it's almost a given that Ruin will overtake uA. | ||||||||||||
| #1725 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Stryn |
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40/0/21 spec (Ruin): 1176.28 43/0/18 spec (Raid UA): 1211.95 So no, you're wrong. In the future, check your work before you go off spouting misinformation please. Last edited by Stryn : 02/29/08 at 5:02 PM. Reason: Clarification | ||||||||||||
| #1726 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
One isn't better than the other at all gear levels, just check the sheet for yourself. Ruin scales better with crit and haste than UA, so at some gear/raid-buff levels it can be better. Those gear levels exist in 2.3 and will be significantly easier to reach in 2.4.
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| #1727 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Kyth |
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Go look at the gear between the tiers. Mana scales very very little, and sometimes negatively, between tiersets (and actually tends to drop once you hit tiered gear off your levelling gear as well.) The basic stats really do not change that much. +dmg, however, increases substantially from "just hit 70" to "Illidan dead for 6 months." Just go look at the mana pools of T5 locks versus the mana pools of T6 locks and then come back and try to say that there is no scaling difference. (Heck, T4->T5 is actually a *loss* in lifetap time-efficiency due to mana decreasing if you look at the sets.) | ||||||||||||
| #1728 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Stryn |
You're correct. I was correcting the point made that ruin "blew away UA" once the player is hit capped, which makes no sense.
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| #1729 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bandoer |
If the spreadsheet gives only a minimal theorycraft edge for UA, I would go with Ruin.
- You get more direct damage. Less loss from dots not going to full duration, whether dots are pushed off, fight mechanics end dots, or the fight duration is ending and you shouldn't reapply dots. - More ISB procs from casting shadowbolt instead of UA | ||||||||||||
| #1730 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
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| #1731 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Presarc |
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| #1732 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
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Exactly , there is only so much the spreadsheet can mimic ... There are certain game mechanics that cannot be truly represented in a theorycraft spreadsheet. ISB is the kicker here. What I meant in particular about "hit" was it's an extremely vital stat that drives Ruin > uA . Well, that and crit / haste. I could have worded it better. | ||||||||||||
| #1733 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Maybe it's just personal preference here, as it can't really be proven without posting a couple dozen videos of various people of different ranges, but my experience is that every bit of range you can get is a significant increase to both your DPS and survivability. Having that much bigger area where you can be and still DPS the boss is just *that* useful. If I could drop the tank's HP by 1k and give everyone in the raid a couple extra yards range on all their abilities I would probably do it on a couple fights. But yeah on some fights giving up the range (and threat reduction, which is a different discussion although I agree your tank should be good enough to hold threat off of an affliction warlock regardless..) in order to grab that improved imp. But improved imp is definitely not an obvoius talent to pick up, considering the big loss of not having full range (and a little more threat reduction).
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| #1734 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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One incidental that you left out is that UA provides more damage than ruin in any situation where you're killing more than 1 thing at a time and each thing lives for more than ~18 seconds. Bottom line (I can't understand why people don't get this) there isn't a spec that's generically and unquestionably _better_. It varies highly depending on the situation and the make-up of your raid. Fortunately we have this awesome spreadsheet by Bolche/Leulier that can tell us how to quantify most of these variables. | ||||||||||||
| #1735 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj |
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Regardless, my argument all along is that if they do wish to change the current version then the scaling should happen off one attribute to keep cost & returns proportional (either 15% of max hp to equivalent mp, 15% of mp for equivalent hp but not 15% of max hp to 15% of max mana as on PTR). | ||||||||||||
| #1736 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
In general due to how much ISB shadow priests are eating up, most realistic crit chances will put ISB up more than they eat it. The only time you'll be eating more than you put up is if you have no shadow priests and you have lower crit than the average shadowbolt crit in your raid, or if your crit rediculessly low, which it isn't if you're even thinking about aff/ruin, which does require very very high levels of gear to outperform UA, unlike full destruction which doesn't require much at all to outperform both specs - full crafted+kara+badge gear with proper gems should be enough to beat an affliction warlock with same gear available even if he tunes it for affliction.
As for more raid DPS because of ruin, dropping UA from your rotation will not be a major ISB increase, and even with the ISB increase you still need some pretty insnae gear to make ruin better than UA. For actual numbers please use the speadsheet (should be linked in main post), it allows you to take all of these factors into account and see for yourselves. | ||||||||||||
| #1737 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Idk |
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| #1738 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Marklar |
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A warlock with 600 int buffed has ~11.5k mana. The gem will only add 12 int for 180 mana. This means your LT frequency goes down about 1.6%. Assuming 5 SB (2k mana) per LT, you are tapping about 11% of the time, so it saves you approximately 0.17% on casting time, which is worth ~2.7 haste rating. The crit bonus is ~0.15%, which is worth ~3 crit rating. So with a total bonus worth perhaps 14 damage, 3 crit and 3 haste, I don't see it competing with CSD. | ||||||||||||
| #1739 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
Whether more SBs leads to more ISB is really a matter of whether your shadowpriests cast DD nukes or not. I don't know what the situation or cutoff in that is anymore, but you used to not see much spriest direct nuking in T5. But if they don't nuke, a ruin build without backlash is at least 3% crit less than a destro build (5% than a demo/destro build) even with the same gear, so you would be dragging ISB uptime down, in the name of bringing it up. As an aff/ruin build, if you're concerned about ISB uptime you should prioritize crit over haste, compared to a destro warlock.
The arguement for ruin also leaves off the fact that UA continues to tick when you can't nuke, like movement, LoS, or CC components interfere. So realistically, deviations from an ideal brick-wall scenario favor as well as hurt UA. | ||||||||||||
| #1740 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
That argument goes both ways. If you have to move and UA is not up, you suffer more from the dot-gap.
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| #1741 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | nimo956 |
Raid dps vs. Personal DPS
I'm a 21/40 lock and I'm having trouble determining how to gauge my contribution to raid dps. For example, I have the Crusader card, the icon, and the sextant trinkets. For raids with a lot of warlocks and spriests I usually wear the Crusader with the Sextant, putting my crit up to like 32%. Is this contributing more to my raid though than if I went purely with +dmg? (Also, i have around 1200 dmg and max hit)
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| #1742 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Necrostar |
I'd say more spell damage , Icon / Card
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| #1743 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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| #1744 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1745 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Hmm, apparently I clicked too fast, resulting in a double post. I can't seem to delete it, though. | ||||||||||||
| #1746 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
UA vs Ruin? did we return to march? It was concluded back then UA was better, plus 9 out of 10 smart warlocks wouldn't even have 16% hit as affliction (only those with gul'dan have any hope of this)
"If the spreadsheet gives only a minimal theorycraft edge for UA, I would go with Ruin." Agreed. Except that it gives more than a minimal theorycraft edge, ergo Ruin is not the way to go.. | ||||||||||||
| #1747 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pentamorfi |
I don't quite understand what you mean by that. I've been affliction for ages now (only recently respeced to destro with 4/5 t6 and the likes, no skull) and I've been hit capped for about as long.
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| #1748 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Evidicus |
I haven't seen this specific discussion yet, but has anyone thought about the upgraded Alchemist Stone for casters coming in the next patch? http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...hemystones.jpg
Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone Equip: Spell Hit +54 Equip: +40% effect from mana and healing potions Considering the new Life Tap changes, the high hit cap for Destro, and the fact that you only need a lot of hit or to drink mana potions on boss fights, I am tempted to pursue Alchemy for this trinket. I can see swapping this trinket in for boss fights and then swapping it out on trash. Just looking for some opinions as it looked like an interesting item that offered some unique utility. | ||||||||||||
| #1749 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
At the very least, it allows you to gear for having an elemental shaman and only swap out one piece of gear if he's missing. I have no idea how the bonus mana regen compares to mana spring, but that's another possiblity. Also note, you can get the healer one, which is a surprisingly unretarded choice: 119 heal means 40 damage. 40 damage obviously isn't worth a trinket slot, but 40 damage and the mana regen might be.
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| #1750 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morakk |
The trinkets gives you 960 mana per potion.
Exactly how much DPS that's worth in 2.4 depends on the size of your mana pool, but it's approximately 1/2 a life tap, or .3 shadow bolts/minute (before haste). Also, will it be possible to swap to a lvl 70 green staff of int, with 30 int on it, and the badge wand with an epic int gem, to maximize the mana gained from life tap? CasterWeaponSwapper can do something similar for mages evocating for instance. However, lifetap is instant, so I'm not sure that it's possible to have the gcd incurred from switching weapons stack with the gcd from casting lifetap itself, and still get the benefit of the additional intellect. | ||||||||||||
| #1751 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Lieuler's spreadsheet will easily account for the extra DPS you get from mana regen (assuming you set everything properly especially fight duration).
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| #1752 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cerebro |
Good day EJ community !!
It is my first time posting here and i would like to start of by saying that i am really bad in the math part of theory crafting etc. Hence the reason i turn to you guys. I have a small question regarding my talent spec. Since Karazhan i've always been an UA-warlock and doing very well with this spec. Even deep into t6 i am still UA, for the simple reason i like the playstyle more then a classic 0/21/40 spec. But because of yesterdays browsing through the forums i started to think that RUIN might be more beneficial for the raid then UA, but that means i might have to make some gear changes, since atm as an UA-warlock i always fully focussed on Spell Hit > Spell Dmg and nothing more. Now with RUIN i would have to add Spell crit to that. The guild i am in is flooded with warlocks and our general rule is that they must spec they do best dmg with. So we have some RUIN locks who specced malediction, some shadow destro warlocks and some UA-warlocks. It is a semi-casual guild sorta speak =) In general my warlock CO who is RUIN and myself who is UA are topping the dmg meters. (fight depended as well ofc) So first i would like to give some information about my character. Cerebro - Gnome Warlock - Member of RECKLESS - Chromaggus EU. First my old spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (classic UA spec) My new Ruin spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (classic RUIN spec) My Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory Stats: 1393 Shadow Dmg ( In combat with darkmoon trinket fully procced) 203 Spell hit rating (16.09%) 11.87% Crit chance (plus 5/5 Devastation) Level of Progress: Illidari Council at the moment. My concern is that my crit rating is way to low for RUIN to out dps my UA-spec. Since i always fully focussed on dmg instead of crit. Now my questions are; 1. Are these stats good enough for RUIN? 2. If not, Is it wise to change any gems to make it more suitable for RUIN? 3. Any general tips on how to improve my gear to make it more suitable for RUIN. So far i only have the cloak and the wrist from t6 content because i was in-active for some time because of the birth of my daughter, but now i am back, so any suggestion for gear swaps are welcome as well. My current aim lies at the off hand from Rage. I hope to get some tips from you guys, Thanks in advance, Regards. | ||||||||||||
| #1753 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vazu |
Any Affliction build that doesn't include UA isn't a raiding build.
Any Destruction build that doesn't include 5/5 S&F isn't a raiding build. Those are two pretty simple rules to go by. It may be boring, but it's true. As far as gear goes, if you're on Council, I'll assume you are also killing Archimonde. Which generally means you should have good enough gear to go Destro, assuming you've been there since the beginning. | ||||||||||||
| #1754 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Eph |
1. Look at the spreadsheet, change your specs in it and see what wins out.
2. Gem for +dmg, unless meeting a meta requirement. 3. I can't see your armory at the moment so no specific suggestions there. Personally I'd gain ~40 dps by choosing Ruin over UA if I were to go Affliction. However, it is a 300-400dps loss from Destruction. Last edited by Eph : 03/01/08 at 9:51 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1755 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Going with 12000 base mana, 6 minute dps circle of Immolate/Incinerate casts, no mp5 and always getting healed from taps:
1911 DPS - 16 taps With 3 mana pots 1924 DPS - 14 taps With trinket on top(same stats) 1937 DPS - 13 taps hope that helps some of your theorycrafts for the trinket | ||||||||||||
| #1756 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If you're destruction there is no reason to gem for damage over hit if you're not capped - but yeah for affliction gems=dmg.
As for ruin I think enough had been said already. Look at the spreadsheet and find out what's most likely to be true - that you do not have the gear to make ruin affliction better than UA. Saying that affliction without UA isn't a raiding build is ignorant though, as there actually are people that have everything they could possibly wish for in the game and for them ruin is definitely better than UA if you force them to get 5/5 shadow embrace (or else they would've specced 0/21/40 like every self-respecting dps warlock that isn't required to spec shadow embrace). | ||||||||||||
| #1757 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
Some theorycraft about fire 2.4 locks and haste:
Note that this only applies in the case of a single lock raid due to the immolate debuff. In the event you have multiple fire locks, somebody's immolate is bound to be up. Our new immolate/incinerate cycle operates much like a mage's scorch/fireball cycle, with the first attack debuffing the mob as a setup for the primary attack. The key difference is that we cannot renew our 'debuff' early without penalty (DoT clipping), and unless conflag is tremendously buffed, we cannot clear the debuff and restart the cycle without penalty. The nature of the immolate debuff is also static. It lasts a flat 15 seconds. With 0 haste, you can fit a perfect 1:6 rotation in a 15 second timeframe: 0.0 seconds: Cast immolate 1.5 seconds: immolate hits next 13.5 seconds: Cast 6 incinerates 15 seconds: Cast immolate: 16.5 seconds: Immolate expires, new immolate hits And so on. As you add haste, you have extra time in the 15 second window. The problem is that that time isn't long enough for a 7th debuffed incinerate. You can obviously lifetap if needed and restart the cycle, or use the weakened incinerate cast. So my question is: Is haste going to truly scale linearly (or approximately so on the range of acquirable gear), or are we going to see haste 'breakpoints' in which marginal gains are amplified due to the ability to move to a 1:7 or 1:8 cycle? | ||||||||||||
| #1758 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Presarc |
That's a great point, and really another feather in shadow's hat. I'm lazy, but do you know the exact amount of haste needed to make it a 1:7 or 1:8 cycle?
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| #1759 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Depends on your haste gear and your mana pool as well as regen.
The total thing is HARD to picture, since you´d have to calculate in a bunch of factors but I can try putting the easy version down: As you stated, but 2.25 cast time: 1.5 immolate hits 3.75 IC 6 IC 8.25 IC 10.5 IC 12.75 IC 15 IC 16.5 immolate runs out (17.25 IC) You would want to cast another Immolate at 15.1 in such a cycle. Mana cost: 445 + 6/7x355 // *0.95 with cataclysm 422 + 6x337 = 2445 mana Means, if you sit at ~12225 mana you fit into that circle, just that you miss 1.x seconds for a Life Tap to make it perfect at this point. 150 haste(no lag) 1.37 Immolated 5112 3.42 Hit 3381 5.47 Crit 6838 7.52 Hit 3362 9.58 Crit 6597 11.63 Crit 6561 13.68 Hit 3302 15.74 Potential 7th hit 16.37 Immolate stops burning here The 6th hit + Tap Time(1.37) + Immolate cast time(1.37) need to be > 16.37 16,42 > 16.37, so yes that works. Trying to fit a 7th Incinerate in that circle: 2782 mana required, that would be 13905 mana(without any mp5 regen!) 400 haste: 1.2 Immolated 3837 3.0 Crit 6795 4.8 Hit 3272 6.59 Hit 3338 8.38 Hit 3413 10.18 Crit 6660 11.97 Hit 3293 13.77 Crit 6663 15.56 Potential 8th hit 16.2 Immolate stops burning here 13.77 + 2x1.2 = 16.17 So at 400 haste, without calcing any lag, you´re almost managing a 7th IC in the circle. 400 haste realistic to achieve? Top Sunwell raiding gear gives you very very close to 400 haste(with JC neck), gemmed with haste/dam and 2 blue gems only. Is the 2781 mana/cycle achievable? Well 12000 mana isn´t too much of a problem with TOP sunwell gear again. The 337 additional mana in this 15 seconds cycle would mean you need to get 112 mp5 from another source. Spriest, JoW or whatever. My 3 cents again | ||||||||||||
| #1760 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Soul |
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| #1761 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
Depending the DPCT of immolate, and how it scales with crit and haste, it might be advantageous to assign a single immolate-bitch for a gaggle of fire-destro warlocks. Choosing which one is an interesting discussion: most damage, or least crit, or what?
As far as how it scale with haste, by doing your necessary lifetapping in the middle of the cycle instead of on the ends, you can shave multiples of three-quarters of a second, pre-haste, modulo 2.25, off the cycle and still have it fit perfectly. You're right in that there will be breakpoints where you don't actually get additional spells (or rather, you lose a tick of immolate by refreshing early if that's preferable), but they're finer than the breakpoints to a 1:7 cycle. | ||||||||||||
| #1762 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
Can people stop posting this as it is incorrect at high gear levels assuming single target. Even before including raid ISB benefit of more sb casts with high crit chance.
Just increases the amount of people who will go back to their guild and say 'Some guy on EJ said this' assuming it is always correct. | ||||||||||||
| #1763 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Just wanted to add another thing before someone asks:
Any relation from growing spellhaste to amounts of taps needed? 12000 mana + 0 haste: 18 taps 12000 mana + 50 haste: 19 taps 12000 mana + 150 haste: 20 taps 12000 mana + 200 haste: 21 taps 12000 mana + 300 haste: 22 taps 12000 mana + 350 haste: 23 taps 12000 mana + 400 haste: 23 taps Again note: These are calculated cycles for a 360 seconds duration, no mp5 regen involved and from a self written(yet x times checked) program. | ||||||||||||
| #1764 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Eph |
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| #1765 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Keep in mind that a cycle can vary in length, slightly. You can recast immolate before it expires, trying to land it right as the previous one expires, or you can try to squeeze in that last incinerate, let immolate drop off, and recast it then. For example, I've done some Dr. Boom testing with a 1:7 cycle, and a 2.12 second cast. 0.0 seconds: Cast immolate 1.38 seconds: immolate hits next 14.84 seconds: Cast 7 incinerates 16.22 seconds: Cast immolate 16.38 seconds: Immolate falls off 17.60 seconds: Immolate hits Thus, my cycle is 16.22 seconds rather than 15 seconds, but I do get the extra cast in theory. In practice, its a random chance as to whether I get the 7th cast with the bonus damage. Of course, I do lose a little over a second of immolate uptime per cycle. But there are 2 options for lifetapping: a shorter cycle aiming for maximum immolate uptime, or a longer cycle aiming for that extra incinerate. Including Lifetap at the end of the cycle: 0.0 seconds: Cast immolate 1.38 seconds: immolate hits next 14.84 seconds: Cast 7 incinerates 16.22 seconds: Lifetap 16.38 seconds: Immolate falls off 17.60 seconds: Cast immolate 18.98: immolate hits Or, including Lifetap mid cycle: 0.0 seconds: Cast immolate 1.38 seconds: immolate hits next 12.72 seconds: Cast 6 incinerates 14.1 seconds: Lifetap 15.48: Cast immolate 16.38 Immolate falls off 16.86: Immolate hits On my 2.4 spreadsheet, the 7 cast cycle comes out to 2099 dps, while the 6 cast one comes out to 2087 dps. Of course, it also uses more mana, as you are lifetapping less often. In response to PSGarak: I cannot imagine any reasonable gearset in which immolate's DPCT is less than incinerate, assuming you have the 10% talent. Last edited by Krazen : 03/01/08 at 10:06 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1766 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morakk |
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/equip Greens of Int /use Life Tap and then switch back to normal weapons on the next SB cast. I'd test this myself, but my efforts to log on to the PTR have all failed. | ||||||||||||
| #1767 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1768 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morakk |
Yeah I was being dumb, there is no cooldown on swapping weapons.
I am still curious, does swapping to int weapons with a macro during the lifetap give you the benefit of the extra intellect? If it does, you would gain 187 mana going from Tempest of Chaos + Chronicle of Dark Secrets + I forget what the Solarian wand is called, to [Ascendant's Scepter] of intellect w/ int enchant + [Draenei Crystal Rod] of int + [Carved Witch Doctor's Stick] with a 10 int gem, with kings and fel intellect. | ||||||||||||
| #1769 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • Spuncan |
Swapping weapons while in combat does activate the GCD.
Adding it up, for me currently, swapping in INT-heavy weapons ([Amani Divining Staff] and a [Carved Witch Doctor's Stick]) would give about 300 more Mana back from a Life Tap. While you can mitigate the switch-back GCD by placing the swap after a Shadowbolt cast in a macro, I think the single 1.5 second GCD would be a greater loss than the extra 300 or so mana. | ||||||||||||
| #1770 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morakk |
But if you switch weapons at the same time as you lifetap, there's no extra cooldown.
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| #1771 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Anedris |
Because lifetap is an instant, I'm not sure you can manage it. Consider:
/cast lifetap /equip <int weapons> Presumably this would fail since you would lifetap before swapping weapons, thus defeating the point of the exercise. Alternatively: /equip <int weapons> /cast lifetap I believe the weapon swap will activate the GCD, thus preventing you from lifetapping for 1.5 seconds. Weapon swapping with cast time spells works because spell damage is calculated at the completion of the cast, so you can begin the cast and then swap weapons. Lifetap being an instant means that this is impossible, because lifetap "casts" the moment you begin the cast (i.e., when you press the button). I haven't actually tested this, so if someone has do correct me, but I believe that's the problem. | ||||||||||||
| #1772 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morakk |
For what it's worth, I just tested on my priest on live, and doing something similar to that does affect the healing done by my renew.
Off topic, but has anyone else had problems logging on to the PTR after transferring a second character? | ||||||||||||
| #1773 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ◊ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #1774 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | moghed |
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| #1775 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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| #1776 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morakk |
Except you can swap back to your real weapons during the Shadowbolt cast and not lose the extra spell damage.
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| #1777 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
He's talking about the shadowbolt before, not the shadowbolt after:
1. Cast shadowbolt, swap weapons so the cooldown is finished before the spell goes off: lose shadowbolt damage 2. Lifetap and swap weapons back: gain extra mana 3. Cast next shadowbolt: normal It's the only way to swap weapons and get extra mana out of lifetap without losing a GCD in there, since the weapon has to be swapped before casting lifetap (unlike Evocation). | ||||||||||||
| #1778 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
You could also simply swap the weapons during the shadowbolt after the liftap instead of immidiately after the lifetap, eliminating possible "extra" GCD that could be caused by desync or whatever. Although it might not really matter (needs testing) the "safe" way would be to swap back the weapons during the shadowbolt rather than as soon as you lifetap.
Doing some very rough math it, looks like the dps gained by lifetapping for 2300 instead of 2000 will increase DPS by 0.75% but lose 1.5% dps due to 300 less spell dmg on shadowbolts before every lifetap. This of course could change in a noticeable way with different lifetap values (which seem to change every 2 days), different intelect gains from weapon swaps and different spell dmg / crit / hit losses. | ||||||||||||
| #1779 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Rublik |
Hi everyone.
I wanted to ask for an advice concerning gear choices. To be precise i want to ask, what you EJ warlock community think about Hood of Hexing? I have hood of the corruptor with CSD. Will the hood of hexing outhweight the meta gem if i change gear/gems to be at 202 hit after i change headpeaces? Here is my armory link:The World of Warcraft Armory | ||||||||||||
| #1780 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Roywyn |
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So, you lose +96 damage on one cast, gain +13 crit rating on that cast and gain +218 mana on life tap. Actually, the haste from Zhar'doom would be worth +70 mana from a life tap (in terms on mana/sec from lifetap). Zhar'doom also has a lot of intellect itself. That feels like changing a lot with slight weapon changes. | ||||||||||||
| #1781 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Even with that example it seems to maybe break even at best, and that example greatly favors the swap since you don't lose the haste (assuming there aren't any issues by swapping immidiately after the lifetap - which there might be depending on how it's handled by the server/client). It's close enough to warrant more accurate calculations but it just doesn't seem worth it.
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| #1782 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | wind |
Speaking of new mechanics in 2.4, I am currently trying to figure out if the changes to incinerate warrant having all the destruction warlocks spec fire.
Quoting from the tooltip on the current ptr build, without haste gear: Incinerate: 337 mana, 2.25 second cast, 488-566 base, + 122-142 if immo is up. That averages to 659 average damage, with immolate up. 292 DPCT, 1.95 DPM. Shadowbolt: 399 mana, 2.5 second cast, 544-607 base damage. Averaging 575.5 average damage, 230 DPCT, 1.44 DPM. With haste gear, the differences in favor of incinerate stack even more. As we usually try and stack haste to the point where spamming a spell with a decreased cast time would not make us go out of mana before being able to tap it back as part of our normal spell cycle, I see incinerate's lower mana cost and higher dpm as giving the potential to stack even more haste than a shadowbolt spamming warlock. In a normally balanced raid, my guild usually has 2-3 mages, 2-3 shadow priests, and 4 warlocks, one of which is affliction. I can perfectly see the single affliction warlock being both the maledictioned coe and the immolate "bitch", while all the destruction warlocks would be spamming incinerates. I am, however, wondering how that will affect raid dps. Fire spells will benefit from the mages' improved scorch. The maledictioned curse will probably shift from cos to coe. The shadowpriest dps will drop (assuming an average 60% imp. sb uptime, shadowpriest dps will decrease by a maximum of 60% of 15% extra damage from imp. sb = 9%?) The lock dps and dps time will most likely increase, and the mage dps will probably increase as well, due to the maledictioned coe. It seems to me that fire would become the superior build, and I was hoping you guys might come up with something that would debunk my assumptions. | ||||||||||||
| #1783 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kobal |
Assuming the individual DPS Gain of Fire Destro outweighs the loss to raid DPS contribution due to the missing ISB procs, I was wondering what the "correct" spec for Fire Destro will be. Since with Fire you have no filler the natural candidate would seem to be this spec.
However, there might be one option: To swap Cataclysm with Improved Shadow Bolt. Yes, Cataclysm is a DPS boost, albeit not a large one (my spreadsheet has it somewhere between 5 and 10 DPS). On the other hand with Improved Shadow Bolt you have basically all the talents needed for Shadow destro as well. This will largely improve your performance on mobs where fire damage is not an option, or only a subpar option, like - Al'ar - Phoenixes during the Kael'Thas Encounter - Supremus due to his high fire resistance - Mother Sharaz during the Prismatic Aura: Fire - Illidan Phase 2 So what do you think, Cataclysm or Improved Shadow Bolt? | ||||||||||||
| #1784 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | wind |
The spec you linked is what I'm currently using on the ptr. As far as fire immune mobs go, I'd rather just respec if needed.
I guess it's all a matter of personal preference, in the end. If you're speccing for max dps, you'll get Cataclysm. If you just want to save respec costs, you'll get Imp. Shadowbolt. | ||||||||||||
| #1785 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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I switch between 0/40/21 and 0/21/40 quite a bit. Having a 3/3 Improved Imp is a big bonus to party members, and the threat reduction makes for zero downtime waiting for a bigger ceiling. In my experience it is awfully situational in terms of personal DPS. On a fight like Void Reaver sometimes I'll pop a trinket and then get targeted for two orbs and have to run away. Plus, he sheds some aggro on knock-back so that makes it all very exciting. If you have more Warlocks, CoR helps on Void Reaver for threat. I've been able to get my DPS time on Void Reaver up from 60% to 70% or so. I think our Tanks are getting better at threat generation and the CoR helps. I lead off with that curse on most bosses, even (especially?) if I'm the only Warlock in the raid. | ||||||||||||
| #1786 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
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Last edited by Suggestive : 03/03/08 at 1:09 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1787 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Seems that even on some of the movement fights you still have long enough "nuke periods" where you can go from full to empty and need to tap, as well as sometimes the movement is time when you're actually taking damage as well and don't want to tap and die (like al'ar phase 2 for both patches and meteors possibly even after the meteor landed).
There are many situations where you could take advantage of no-dps times to tap, but there are also about as many situations where you can't. | ||||||||||||
| #1788 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
Yeah, something like council comes to mind as well. I'm not dismissing it out of hand, just sort of mulling over it. Its not really something you can put a number on since it will change by encounter, and possibly week to week on the same encounter based on RNG. At the very least its worth a little testing to see how it works out.
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| #1789 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1790 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Redelm |
I just had a quick thought at work and its a bit out there, but I am wondering if anyone has looked into the numbers. With the introduction of the 3 extra pieces of T6, and those pieces obviously allowing you to get the 4/5 (or 4/8) bonus. Is Demo spec, using 2/5 T5 and 4/8 T6 with the Solarian trinket, a viable option in SW raiding. I understand you are not using the best gear available for your 2 T5 slots and Trinket slot. Again this was just a quick thought and was wondering if anyone had looked into the numbers or am I crazy? The latter of the two is probably true
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| #1791 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cohren |
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| #1792 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Evilwilly |
Does the change to haste rating make affliction spec viable again? It will scale much better with gear now...
Now that the global cooldown is being reduced in patch 2.4, has anyone given any thought behind the value of haste rating in affliciton spec? I did some quick calcs on a modified spreadsheet, and it looks like 1 haste rating will go from being worth 0.2 spell dmg to 1.1 spell dmg for UA affliction spec. Considering that Affliction spec gets outpaced hardcore by destruction mostly because of the itemization, now that haste rating is worth 1.1 spell dmg (if that's true), then perhaps affliction spec will scale well again, and maybe can out-dps destruction again? After all, we're talking about 3-5k DPCT dots!! Lowering the cast time, we could see 5-8k DPCT dots. I looked back as far in this post as I could to see if this has been discussed, but couldn't find anything. | ||||||||||||
| #1793 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Evilwilly |
I have another quick question for you guys...
Is there a dot timer where I can click on the dot timer and it will target the mob that the dot is on? If not, what is the best way to ensure that in 3+ pulls that all your dots are being refreshed as fast as possible. What do you guys do? | ||||||||||||
| #1794 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1795 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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| #1796 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Evilwilly |
When you have 3 targets that will be tanked for longer than 30 seconds (or so), then dots will run off different mobs at different times.
For example, you can CoA/corr/UA each 3 mobs to start, then siphon them all, then immolate 1, by then Corr will run out on mob 2, so you can Corr/UA it, then Corr/UA the 2nd, then you have weird things like CoA going on mob 1, Corr/UA going on mob 3, followed by CoA on mob 2, etc... It's 100% impossible to maintain less than 1 second dot gap on 3 mobs when you have to refresh the dots on all 3. I tab target, but what would really be cool would be if a dot timer could target the mob when you click on it.... or if you could set up 3 focus frames and the dot timers would appear under each one. I guess that was more of my question... does anything like that exist? Right now i'm just tab/click switching targets and it works okay, but can be greatly approved upon. I was just wondering if any of the T6 guild locks have anything such as that to help maintain dot gap time low on multi pull long lasting fights. | ||||||||||||
| #1797 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kyth |
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| #1798 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lymphatik |
You could use macro with mouseover. So you will gain the wasted time to clik but you would have to be carefull about those lovely turtle or sheep
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| #1799 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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But affliction outdps destruction? I though it obvious that now better gear becomes available, Affliction will fall even further behind. Affliction just doesn't scale well. It never has, and it probably never will. They'd need to change a lot of core mechanics for it to be even remotely competitive at end gear level. You say it's because itemization, but it really doesn't matter how you place attributes on gear. 0/21/40 simply gains more point for point from hit, crit, spelldamage and haste. | ||||||||||||
| #1800 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1801 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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I'm destro, so I just spam CoA on pulls (using tab target, or MT list, as has been suggested) and throw SBs after. During the 1.5 seconds of GCD you should be able to pick up a new good target. | ||||||||||||
| #1802 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Even with 20k HP on the tanks blood pact simply helps *that* much. Maybe not enough for a T6 warlock to switch to affliction, but when combined with the incredible shadow embrace and the fact some of the DPS loss is made up for with malediction makes affliction more than worth it at any gear level when you want to maximize your chance to down the boss. When you already have absolutely no chance to wipe to tank death, though (which means you have everything in the game on farm for quite a while now so it doesn't really matter), you could just go for max dps to farm content in speed records... For anything else - 1 affliction warlock in the raid is pretty much a requirement if you care at all about optimizing for easiest boss kills.
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| #1803 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Beardyhead |
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Phase 2 on Illidan, I keep the secondary infernal focused, with the primary infernal targeted and both fully dotted. Considering our FR tanks rely a lot on MD's to get early threat to hold down the nukers, I enjoy being able to maintain relatively high DPS, self preservation (siphon life x 2, t6 2pc bonus x2 = lots of healing coming in). It's easy to tab target during GCD so that you never lose DPS time fidgeting targets. ImprovedCamera2 and zooming out til you're a dot on the screen also trivializes the ability to target things. | ||||||||||||
| #1804 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vand1 |
From the latest PTR build:
Lifetap changes have been reverted back to 2.3 original values. Rank 1 to 7 - Converts 20/65/130/210/300/420/580 health into 20/65/130/210/300/420/580 mana | ||||||||||||
| #1805 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lord Pendragon |
Question for the experts:
Currently my (affliction) warlock is using Quagmirran's Eye. The spell damage is very good for me, while the haste has always seemed fairly worthless. Of course this changes with 2.4, where haste now has the effect of acting on the global cooldown. This means that the Eye's haste proc can still be useful to me, even if I'm in the midst of re-applying DoTs. But where my confusion comes in is judging just HOW useful this effect is. 2.4's latest changes include an improved Alchemist's stone which provides +63 spell damage. So, to sum it up, is a +360 haste for 6 sec proc worth more or less than a static +26 spell damage? Thanks for any help. | ||||||||||||
| #1806 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
26 spell damage is better, since haste even buffed in 2.4 is not the that great of a stat for Affliction. I think 0.6 for haste with spell damage 1 is about right at Tier 4-5 level.
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| #1807 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | SRneo |
Hey guys,
I just have a quick question concerning UA and Ruin. I know at early levels UA outperforms and Ruin wins later on...But I was just wondering when? What spell damage and crit% must you have to make Ruin > UA? Of course you must be hit capped lol...I'm not THAT dumb. Thanks for the answers. | ||||||||||||
| #1808 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nas |
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Try playing around with the Warlock DPS Spreadsheet, should be easy enough to find the threshold there. | ||||||||||||
| #1809 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Presarc |
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| #1810 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Shabaz |
I'd love some assistance from you all on where to focus. My armory currently has me in PVP gear, so Ill just run down where I'm at. I'm a 0/21/40 build. My guild is clearing Leo, Lurker, and Hydross in SSC. We are currently working on Fathomlord and Tidewalker. I've been gearing for balance, trying to find items that had solid damage, crit, and hit. I currently gear for boss fights and end up (raid buffed) at:
203 Hit (gonna regem at some point to get that 1 point back) 31% Crit (actually 26% pure crit, but +5% from Devestation for Destruction) (I also raid with a Moonie making it effectively 36% assuming I'm not running out of aura range 1400 Shadow damage (that or thereabouts) I tend to hit 900 to 1100 DPS (according to WOW Web Info) depending on the fights (*thats including trash...I keep meaning to run it only on bosses but havent) So, I feel kinda stuck. I have the spreadsheets and its starting to look like crit is worth more then damage, but I'm not sure how much stock to put into that, and how high I should be trying to get my crit. Are my numbers what I should expect for my point in progression? | ||||||||||||
| #1811 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
And it still (sadly) scales with +shadow damage. My PTR Fire build has about 100 (180 with flamecap) extra fire damage.
Last edited by Krazen : 03/07/08 at 11:48 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1812 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate | |||||||||||||
| #1813 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
Well, that was probably irresponsible of me to say. I was pretty convinced personally that fire was better than shadow with the 20% mana based lifetap, and I haven't done the math to see how losing 100ish mana on lifetaps affects this.
Consider it to be more of an idealistic statement (I'd prefer to scale with just 1 type of damage rather than 2) rather than anything on the merits of either build. But it would be nice if LT scaled with your highest school of magic. | ||||||||||||
| #1814 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Depressio |
About Fire vs. Shadow in 2.4...
The new 0/21/40: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Watch out! That being said, the differences between Fire/Shadow in 2.4 are these: Shadow Bolt: +10% from Shadow Weaving +20% from ISB (depends on how often it's up) 85.7% of +damage Coefficient before Shadow & Flame. 572 average damage base Incinerate: +15% from Scorch +10% damage from Emberstorm +10% haste from Emberstorm 71.4% of +damage Coefficient before Shadow & Flame. 598.5 average damage base (with Immolate) Overall, they're strikingly similar. Shadow Bolt gets 5% less via SW than Incinerate gets from Scorch, but makes up for it with the higher +damage coefficient. Incinerate gets a flat 20% DPS increase via Emberstorm, but Shadow Bolt gets almost 20% from ISB (since it's not always up), but helps the raid too and does not require Immolate (which with all the fire talents, might actually be higher DPCT anyway for an Incinerate build). As far as personal DPS, they will compete. As far as raid DPS, 1 or 2 Shadow Destruction Warlocks are necessary to keep ISB up 50-60% of the time. Additional Warlocks doing that won't really help that much since more often than not, they will be replacing each other's charges and adding minimal uptime (observe this effect via WOW ISB Uptime Simulator). Imagine you have infinite Destruction Warlocks with 30% crit and 10% haste (about right for BT/Hyjal). Imagine you have two fixed Shadow Priests (again, about right for BT/Hyjal). 1 Warlock: 50.6% ISB uptime (50.6% increase over 0, 10.12% shadow DPS increase) 2 Warlocks: 59.07% ISB uptime (8.47% increase, 1.69% shadow DPS increase over 1 Warlock) 3 Warlocks: 64.1% ISB uptime (5.03% increase, 1.01% shadow DPS increase over 2 Warlocks) Notice that with each Warlock you add, the ISB uptime increase is smaller. 1 Warlock responsible for ISB is the largest effect. Each additional Warlock past 1 Shadow adds a minute amount of ISB uptime and % increase to Shadow DPS. This effect is caused by overwriting ISB's; the more Warlocks you have doing it, the more ISB charges you will be overwriting. A single Warlock maximizes ISB usage and efficiency. Bottom line: The ideal is likely going to be 1 or 2 Shadow Destruction, the rest Fire. | ||||||||||||
| #1815 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Plasty |
Feedback burn ect..
The World of Warcraft Armory
Hello everyone, I am looking for feedback on how to improve my guy for overall performance. I have been looking for the dr on crit and when to switch to spell dam ect.. If you have any tips at all for gear or whatever please reply below!! I do run with 201 spell hit just for some reason wowamory is not updating | ||||||||||||
| #1816 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1817 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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| #1818 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
I don't think he's comparing affliction to destro as much as UA toRuin for a malediction/SE build.
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| #1819 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Just the fact the 3rd warlock won't add as much ISB as the 2nd doesn't immidiately mean that it's neglicible. I suggest looking at the spreadsheet using your own raid as a baseline to get useful results rather than do guestimations.
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| #1820 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Depressio |
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The real question is whether Fire is higher personal DPS in 2.4 than Shadow. I feel that it will be, and in that case, the DPS difference will eclipse the added DPS from 1% increased Shadow DPS via another Shadow Warlock. | ||||||||||||
| #1821 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pyralissa |
How big a difference is a "fire" lock using Cataclysm versus not having Cataclysm? If a "fire" warlock picks up ISB along with the other supporting fire talents (Emberstorm, Imp. Incinerate) they could conceivably switch between shadow and fire depending on what's available for the raid (or even the encounter, although I don't know of any encounter that would force you to make such a switch based strictly off elemental damage type). If one of the shadow destruction warlocks doesn't show up, it's just a simple as a matter as switching to shadow bolt over incinerate. I don't really see a big difference in specs (except supporting talents) to force you to really block yourself into one of the specific paths.
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| #1822 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Cataclysm, by "talent standards", is a very weak talent. It is, however, an undeniable DPS increase. Look at the spreadsheet for exact values.
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| #1823 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Depressio |
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| #1824 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wingalock |
I am also as eager as Pyralissa to see how much of a difference it would make for a warlock to pick up Catalysm but not Improved Immolate: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, as opposed to pick up Improved Immolate but not Catalysm: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft.
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| #1825 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If you're already casting immolate, improving it seems to be significantly more dps than cataclysm. Granted I only looked at one spec and gear setup but the dps difference was quite big to make it require you to take it to some extreme for cataclysm to be better than improved immolate if you're casting immolate. If you're not casting immolate obviously imroving immolate gives 0 dps (although if it turns it into worth casting it could be somewhere in between).
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| #1826 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1827 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wingalock |
Thanks, silly me, I have run the spreedsheet, and it works out that even with purely spamming Incinerate (without Immolate), the DPS will be higher than spamming SB (considering a raid setup consists of 3 Shadow Destruction Warlocks + 2 Shadow Priests), however it only increases by a small margin.
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| #1828 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Because if you're not: you're horribly wrong. These days, even at Karazhan levels, regular 0/21/40 seems to win by a landslide. Epic badge loot raised the bar a lot. | ||||||||||||
| #1829 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • Astrylian |
Rawr Beta 12.1 posted!
DOWNLOAD: https://www.codeplex.com/Release/Pro...eleaseId=11483 Beta 12.1: - Fixed a bug that would cause "Input string not in correct format" errors when Rawr was run on copies of Windows for a region where a period is not the decimal separator (ie european countries where it would be "1,23" instead of "1.23"). - For proxies that filter by user-agent, the user-agent used by Rawr is now customizable in the proxy options. - Config settings (like recent files) are now user specific. - Fix for occasionally not loading icons immediately even though a network connection is available. Also fixed an error when there was no network connection. - Rawr.Mage: Added new AB-AM cycle and new AB cycles with Frostbolt/Scorch filler, added a fix for the item budget comparison, added scrolling on the options screen, added Drums of Battle stacking, - Rawr.Warlock: Fixed issue when altering spell cycle | ||||||||||||
| #1830 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Remember that the spreadsheet doesn't take into account the DPS the raid gains from your improved shadowbolt into your own DPS. It only adds raid DPS increases from ISB in the "next stat" section. If you chance your talents/spells/gear and look at your DPS difference you also have to go to the raid ISB tab and see how much ISB uptime changed and calculate [(the difference )* 0.2 * (shadow dps of the rest of your raid)] and add/substract that to/from your DPS. Then consider what happens if you raid with 3 shadow priests, or only 2 warlocks. And make one of the warlocks affliction if you really want a realistic progressing raid.
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| #1831 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Throwing another topic in here: Has anyone done theorycrafts on SW gear and what to grab yet?
I came up with chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.2.beta before RAWR, and rawr also says me that these items are quite on spot in overall max dps. Only thing I'm really not happy about is the awful lack of +hit on all that gear, even had to socket 2 items with hit/dam gems to get 200. (Also includes being JC/Enchanter - for the neck) As for the when-to-pick-what: shadowpriest.com :: View topic - TEMP 2.4 Best Raiding Gear Available Shoulders, Gloves, Wand are best on slot for Spriest as of current. Chest - if you´re tailor pick Sunfire, else it´s a cat fight against spriest there as well. Pros: Leggings of Calamity we´d only have to fight mages for. Anyone with good thoughts on this? | ||||||||||||
| #1832 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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New Twin Eredars neck has 15 hit. Switch to Sunfire Robe and use this neckpiece, then ungem hit. | ||||||||||||
| #1833 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
That would mean 200hit, 25haste, 25crit, 36dam vs 205 hit, 32haste, 39dam
25 crit vs 2hit, 7haste and 3dam That's a pretty fair trade with Sunfire still. | ||||||||||||
| #1834 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | atvrider450r |
Anyone use maxdps.com? And the ss from this post? Can i get some opinions on them on which is more preferred?
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| #1835 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Ammanas |
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| #1836 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pidge |
I might be wrong, but isn't 1 hit rating worth a lot more than 1 +spell damage? As such, wouldn't Great Lionseyes and Veiled Pyrestones be the highest DPS value items in a gem slot? Personally, I think the amount of hit on the Sunwell gear is fantastic because of this. It allows you to tailor your Hit requirements a lot more easily and spend your "gem budget" more efficiently.
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| #1837 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
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It is clearly better to get your hit from mana attuned band, translucent spellthread(or twins neck), skull of guldan, and loop of forged power than it is to use hit gems. Using these 4 items as well as best in slot in every slot (sunflare/chronicle for wep) and inspiring presence from draenei you get 208hit. Granted if you can't get guldan(the rest shouldn't be a problem), and you are horde and don't get a free 1%(also assuming no ele shaman).. You will need to socket a great deal of hit gems. as you will be around 33 hit below the cap in ideal gear set. Which might be the best time to get the +50hit staff instead of going the 1h route, as you would lose another 17 from not having chronicle meaning you would be exactly 50hit short.. So basically horde warlocks without guldan or elemental shamans should get the staff =P When gemming your first priority will be to make it the rest of the way to the hit cap, using the gem that matches the socket color, because socket bonus will always makeup the tiny difference between using veiled pyrestone or great lionseye, or using reckless pyrestone and quick lionseye. Blue sockets are never worth matching unless you are trying to meet a meta requirement, and even then none of the new gear has a blue socket so ideally you will socket one item that has two sockets with two blue, or 2 items that have 1 socket with a blue each, costing you a grand total of +4dmg in socket bonuses. Last edited by Flamingcloud : 03/08/08 at 11:21 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1838 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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I was talking about pure affliction vs Destro aka 0/21/40... The OP was asking a different question. | ||||||||||||
| #1839 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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| #1840 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Fireye |
*** moved to rawr thread ***
Last edited by Fireye : 03/10/08 at 2:37 PM. Reason: Moving to appropriate thread. | ||||||||||||
| #1841 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #1842 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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Wait isnt the Illidian healing cloak the best in slot assuming hit cap which if you are at at the point where you can get it you should be. Being hit cap haste > dam > crit | ||||||||||||
| #1843 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
According to the spreadsheet both at my gear level, and at end of sunwell gear level, 12dmg > 6dmg 5haste > 10haste.. Of course the difference is low enough that socketing bonuses are worth seeking out.
As far as best hit-capped cloak.. I really doubt 32 haste > 19dmg 25crit. All the spreadsheets/programs I have seen have council cloak way ahead of the haste cloak.. and that healing cloak isn't that much better than the haste cloak. | ||||||||||||
| #1844 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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Maybe I'm reading the spreadsheet incorrectly but I dont see the Shroud of he Highborne as being terribly lower if at all. I see a value of 56.69 vs 58.33. Point for point (from a destro POV) haste returns more DPM than spell damage. Currently I'm at 5% haste, 22.37 Crit and 17.64% hit. For me haste added the biggest boost. | ||||||||||||
| #1845 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sataniss |
In 2.4 I'm probably going to be atleast trying out fire in raids. My main question is how should/does gemming change in 2.4? I've messed with the spreadsheet a bit but I'm still just getting used to it. Most have said that in 2.4 you should start going for the socket bonus's on your gear.
Obviously for reds I'm going to stick with the +12 dmg gem but what (in your opinion/testing) is the best yellow gem? The pure haste gem or dmg/haste? Also, would you bother putting in blue gems to obtain the socket bonus or just skip it all together? Lastly, since we're adding in more yellow gems it's going to make using the 1/2 cast meta requirements hard to meet. What other PvE meta's would people suggest? | ||||||||||||
| #1846 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
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Last edited by Flamingcloud : 03/11/08 at 11:53 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1847 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Sataniss |
I have the +hit covered from gear so I don't have to gem for it luckily. Thanks for the advice on the meta choice which also opens up my gem choices further. Lastly, assuming you have equal opportunity to both red/orange gems, would you fully outfit yourself in red gems (ignoring socket bonus's) or red/orange gems to obtain the socket bonus's? I guess it may fall into some level of gear dependancy so I'm sitting in half SSC/TK, half MH/BT gear
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| #1848 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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[Shroud of the Highborne] item value 56.69 vs [Cloak of the Illidari Council] item value 58.33 ![]()
Maxdps.com shows the Shroud of the highborne slightly higher(reverse of spreadsheet) than Cloak of the illidari Council. You can punch in the stats into the spreadsheet v2.2 and you'll see the Council cloak is not far ahead of the healing cloak. I guess it depends on what spreadsheet or website you want to go by but I havent seen any that has the healing cloak significantly lower than anything else and in fact is best in slot on some... BTW [Shadowcaster's Drape] shows an item value of 51.73 #3 best cloak atm (which Maxdps.com also shows) EDIT: Btw Flamingcloud whats the cast time of your bolts? Looks like you have about 9% haste rating which is hot!! | ||||||||||||
| #1849 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lerker |
Quick question in weapon choice for 0/21/40 lock(shadow) -
I'm currently using Wub's from dragonhawk in ZA. I recently picked up the Blade of Twisted Visions from zul'jin, and have it banked for 2.4 According to leulier's spreadsheet even with the 2.4 haste changes, the DPS increase from the blade and wub's is less than 1. Is this correct? Assuming the hit from wub's is un needed. I personally would have thought the blade would be more than 1 DPS increase. | ||||||||||||
| #1850 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1851 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
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I wouldn't trust maxdps for much of anything, if the spreadsheet shows council higher, i'd believe it. ![]()
I found found in practice that spell haste seems to be even better than the spreadsheets indicate (ring of ancient knowledge vs band of the eternal sage) | ||||||||||||
| #1852 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
I too have almost always found the Healing cloak to be 2nd best in slot behind Illidari cloak.
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| #1853 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Darumafm |
Spellcloth viable for Destro?
I have read the post by the op and was wondering if Spellcloth because of the fire damage would be a viable spec for raiding rather than shadowcloth. This was something that me and my wife who has a Shadow Priest were wondering about since Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft this posted build has is built for fire damage. I have been 70 with my Lock for awhile and had never used Elitist Jerks until it was recommended by a friend for my Shaman. So I just spec'd her with a traditional raiding spec. This is her Armory link I am new to Elititst Jerks and posting on the Forums and I hope it is ok to add this link to my post. I thought it might help. The World of Warcraft Armory
Last edited by Darumafm : 03/12/08 at 12:48 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1854 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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About your question: it's hard to tell, really. I typically don't speculate on test realms, given that they can change at any time (i.e. the life tap changes). I'll make an exception here. Fire destro seems to be getting a nice buff, which will probably make it better than shadow in smaller groups (say a heroic or 10 man without a shadow priest). End game raiding probably will still be see shadow win, since ISB is still a main factor. But it'll be closer and very much depending on raid setup and fights. This is all hypothetical and subject to change. Currently I wouldn't bet my money either way. I'd recommend not making the set just yet. You could level tailoring and specialize already, building a cloth supply, if you so wish. | ||||||||||||
| #1855 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pyralissa |
I uh... actually have a full set of crafted spellfire in my bank from early on in TBC when Incinerate looked like the new Shadow Bolt. Lots of scaling issues later.. let's just say I haven't taken the spellfire out of the bank in awhile.
I personally think the ability to switch between fire and shadow depending on the situation is going to be very useful (especially in ten mans where you might have a fire mage and not have a shadow priest, or enough warlocks to carry ISB) but lifetap not scaling through +fire damage is a fairly significant drawback. | ||||||||||||
| #1856 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Brachamul |
Hey all,
I've recently been dwelling a lot on Destro and I've got a question for you. It seems to be much agreed upon that ISB is a big boost to raid DPS on top of just the Warlock's, but I'm not really convinced about that. About shadow priests, they will munch up charges with their [Shadow Word : Death] and their [Mind Blast], these spells are very weak compared to a Warlock's [Shadow Bolt]. I was thinking, in the end, doesn't the fact that priests will sometimes stop the warlock from using a charge overall reduce the effectiveness of ISB? I mean, if you're at 35% crit, you'll throw in about 65 charges a minute, and use you yourself about 40. That's barely 25 charges left for the priests, wouldnt they munch through that very fast in a minute's time? Especially for raids that have a lot of Shadow Priests. Otherwise, what if there was one warlock playing Shadow with ISB, applying debuffs for the raid, and other warlocks were damaging with Fire? I've personally found that for 1100 spell damage, hitcapped and 30% critrate (including talents), Fire would deal more damage than spamming Shadow Bolt, even if all the Bolts were boosted by ISB. This is a table recording the results of my calculations. I would post the excel file, but I don't know where to host it. ![]() Note: By DPS I mean damage divided by cast time. Minimal cast time is 1.5 seconds, global cooldown. This includes Scorch, Misery, Shadow Weaving, CoE, CoS, Chaotic Skyfire metagem, all interesting Destro talents and no Demonic Sacrifice. Using these numbers, I find that an Immolate + Incinerate x5 cycle would deal 1477 dps with Sacrificed Imp, while spamming Shadow Bolt would deal only 1429 dps with Sacrificed Succubus. Also, Fire is much more Mana efficient. Also, murdering your imp is just plainly psychologicaly satisfying. Last edited by Brachamul : 03/12/08 at 5:34 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1857 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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Also, you're wrong about efficiency. Incinerate is a faster spell now, thus requiring more casts. In addition, it requires Immolate which is horribly expensive. Assuming no haste, no latency and no mana reducing talents: Fire cycle: Immolate + 6 * Incinerate (15 sec) : 2585 mana Shadow cycle: Shadow Bolt * 6 (15 sec) : 2520 mana This is assuming that you can squeeze 6 incinerates into the 15 second time frame for Immolate. If you can't, you'll do 5 making it even better for the Shadow Bolt side. In addition, Shadow users can use +shadow damage items and get more mana out of life tap. This however might change with post 2.4 itemisation, I have to admit I haven't looked at those in depth. If all best items come with generic +damage there, this argument would no longer be valid. Myself, I'm interested to see how this plays out. I'll try and update ShadowSeer when 2.4. is out, and see what the results are. I'd love be able to play with the much prettier Incinerate for a change. Last edited by Arelenda : 03/12/08 at 7:46 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1858 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Halens |
Immolate Vs No-immolate As affliction?
I know this is a bit off topic, and is in the glossary of the Compendium however I wanted some further insight on the matter. My friend, who had my apply to his guild is 4/5 T6(Nick is Cained from Kilrogg in Still Life). I'm Spellstrike/FSW/Random pieces from TK/SSC(Minolta on armory). I am also 41/0/20 UA spec.
My friend stated his argument that because I have more shadow dmg pieces in my gear (1089 Shadowdmg, 891 Firedmg with FA) that I would benefit more from NOT using Immolate. Now at first I was skeptical, so I went to leuilir's and began calculating. According to the spreadsheet, at 1200 shadow-damage, and 1200 fire damage I would lose 25 DPS. At my current gear setting, I would lose 15 DPS. Now I'm trying weigh this between 60% more of an extra shadowbolt VS. a lesser damage Immolate. I have not gotten a chance to test it in a raid enviorment YET, however my friend is wanting me to test it out tomorrow in my trial. Is he correct and the spreadsheet wrong about the DPS gain, or is he mistaken? In theory it make sense I just don't understand why the spreadsheet sees it other-wise. The consumables I use are Flask of puredeath Spelldmg food MH spelldmg Elixir Mana Potions/Health Potions | ||||||||||||
| #1859 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | gargosch |
Immolate Vs No-immolate As affliction?
Immolates base damage is 942, SB 572 so you need a lot more shadow damage, haste (befor 2.4) and crit to make SB better then immolate. Easy solotion to check this is to use Dr. Damage. Calculate the dps in raid depending on what debuff you have on the target. Depends a lot if you have SP, firemage, CoS(talented), CoE(talented) and ISB on the target. IF SB is close to immolate in dps use Sb because it use less mana per second. | ||||||||||||
| #1860 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Pentamorfi |
The general rule of thumb I've found to work in most cases is that in every 'normal gear' scenario (and by 'normal' I mean you don't have something crazy like 500 shadow damage more than fire), Immolate is a small DPS increase for affliction. On the other hand, 4/5 t6 and destro spec means you could safely drop Immolate.
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| #1861 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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I have actually made the swap on the live realms already for testing and playing around a bit. My typical 25-man raid composition will always have 2-4 mages spec'ed Icy Veins/Fire or Fire/Arcane. We may have a shadow priest. We will have another Warlock or two. One is Affliction/Ruin and the other is Demo 0/40/21. In my 10-mans I will rarely have a Shadow Priest and frequently have a Fire Mage. I went fire and have loved it. I have less +dmg and it is harder to get hit-capped, but I'm doing a lot more damage. I'm also doing a lot better on AoE encounters (Solarian/Jan'alai) due to Rain of Fire having less threat than Seed of Corruption, and the fire damage buffs help Rain of Fire hit harder. Since there are cases where I am the only Warlock (and I have been the sole shadow user at least once in Tempest Keep), I was putting up CoR and rotating CoE anyway, so I figure I may as well align myself with the Mages. Even if I don't sacrifice the Imp I can push 950-1000dps out, and have been able to maintain 1100-1300 on a fight like Void Reaver, which is no small feat for someone in 2pT4 and craftable gear. I have just the Spellfire robe, Spellstrike hood and pants, and I'm using T4 shoulders and gloves. My other suit is Mantle of the Elven Kings, Spellstrike Hood, Voidheart Gloves & Pants. I've been having great results with my move to Fire. It looks like it will get a nice bump in 2.4, too. | ||||||||||||
| #1862 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kabale |
What spec were you using as shadow? UA in FSW will beat Fire any day of the week at your gear level/progression. Probably even without a shadow priest. Not having a shadow priest in your raid is like having a dps warrior for tank - don't do it.
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| #1863 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Halens |
Well they are just taking us to SSC/TK for a trial. They will be then gearing whoever 'wins' up in preparation for sunwell. They will have a shadowpriest but I believe there arn't any mages who stack scorch so in my case immolate would be a liability I can see. My spec is 41/0/20
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| #1864 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Brachamul |
Easy question, do talents like the +10% shadow damage increase or the succubus' sacrifice increase the power of Life Tap by 10% or 15%?
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| #1865 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget | |||||||||||||
| #1866 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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Even with a Shadow Priest or two in the raid, I would have one other Warlock. We are a very casual guild. We don't have any requirements on anyone other than survivability. This hasn't prevented us from being 2/4 TK, however. Frankly I'm of the opinion that I'm hopelessly stupid at Affliction. I could never make it work the way other people could. I get much better results in 0/40/21 or 0/21/40 fire or shadow. | ||||||||||||
| #1867 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Turbo Moses | |||||||||||||
| #1868 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
According to the spreadsheet the ranking is +12dmg, +6dmg/5haste, +10haste. (atleast at my gear level, as well as at end sunwell gear level.. didn't test a middle sunwell level)
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| #1869 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
Basically my viewpoint. 10 haste might beat 12 dmg ever so slightly now, but I'm not convinced that will be the case when I have so much more haste thru gear than I do now.
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| #1870 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Flamingcloud |
Heh diminishing returns on haste is interesting.... If my gems are a mix of reckless pyrestone, and crimson spinel, it tells me +10haste is the best gem.. If I change all my gems to 10haste.. it tells me +12dmg is the best.. Seems like the tipping point is around 16-17% haste(although this probably changes at different gear levels.. this is +1650shadow, 17%haste 16%hit 28%crit). After that point it goes +12dmg > +6dmg/+5haste > +10haste.. before that point it goes +10haste > +6dmg/5+haste >+12dmg
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| #1871 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | zanaris |
Haste Rating in 2.4 and warlocks
I wanted to make a new thread for this because I haven't seen this kind of question truly addressed in any thread let alone a completely new one, and the GCD change with haste rating is going to affect all caster classes.
I think it's safe to say that Haste is a dps increase for all caster classes with a passive regeneration of mana. However do warlocks benefit from haste rating at all? Lifetap will now scale with haste rating, however it will not scale nearly as well as it does with shadowbolt, ex. Here is what 113 haste does to the GCD versus shadowbolt. GCD - 1.5 seconds to 1.399 Shadowbolt - 2.5 seconds to 2.332 As you can see, LT obviously does not scale as well as shadowbolt does. Basically what i'm asking is, does haste even increase dps for locks? I havent actually cranked out the numbers, just because I fear I will be too inaccurate. So I came here to see if anyone has done research on this sort of thing. The only thing i can logically come up with is spell dmg> haste because if anything, it increases our dps AND our mana regen, where as haste would increase our dps (if at all) and decrease our DPM/mana increase our mana regen (because faster lifetaps) but would need to LT more per minute thus requiring more true tapping time. The only page i found anything about haste and warlocks was in this thread, and it linked me to Passive Haste studies. and imo this information is outdated with 2.4 being just a month or two away. Any information looking into this would be greatly appreciated. | ||||||||||||
| #1872 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Think about it logically. In 2.3 haste increases dps and mana consumption so amount of lifetaps by let's say same %. But this is still a dps increase, on par with +dmg atm.
In 2.4 it will also reduce LT time by a %, with a gross estimation that 0 haste in 60 seconds will be exactly squeezed into a lower amount of time with haste. So even higher dps increase, basicly complete time compression for all spells of all casters (cooldown tied casters like spriests have it a bit different). You don't have to have same amount of time reduced to make it as good for LT, if you had then it would be not as good but a lot better for LT. For example, if atm you do some damage in 1 minute, next patch you'd do same damage in 54.5s with 10% haste. | ||||||||||||
| #1873 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
I need a bit of advice. I had been running with Robes of Rohnin but yesteday I was able to get the T6 robes and T6 helm. I was under the impression that the rhonin robes were better than T6 robes however when I punch them into the spreadsheet imy DPM and DPS goes down. I thought using the Rhonin robes and the rest T6 was better than full T6? The item value appears better but on the DPS tab when I equpt it the DPS and DPM go down.
Am I overlooking something? | ||||||||||||
| #1874 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Difference is minor. Only sensible upgrades over t6 are illidan head, leggings of channeled elements or vashj chest, with erm reverse order from highest to lowest difference.
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| #1875 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | zanaris |
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However an interesting note that the link claims is that haste is almost 10% (I believe the actual value is 9.4%) more expensive than +dmg in terms of gear. This is a very confusing subject with very intricate math, I would appreciate an explanation with math, and an explanation to that math. (The link I showed you is pretty well explained, even though confusing.) I'd like to see something along the lines of that link, again it is Passive Haste studies. I realize i'm being picky, but I just want somewhere to start if no one has done anysort of math/testing on this subject. | ||||||||||||
| #1876 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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For destro it is fairly straightforward: Let A be your dps with no haste. Take your total damage over a given time frame, say T seconds. Unhasted damage = A * T. If you now obtain haste rating B, you'll be able to cast the same spell sequence faster, doing the same damage, but in less time. The new time is T / (1 + B / 1577) To calculate your new dps, you divide total damage A*T by the new time frame T / (1 + B / 1577). This gives you the following formula: hasted dps = A * (1 + B / 1577) Mind you, there is a cap at 33% haste (500+ haste rating), because you can't speed spells up below 1 second. For affliction it's less beneficial. Aside from reducing the dot gap, which is probably not that big of a deal, you'll have more time to cast shadow bolts which are your your lowest dps filler spell. There have been a few attempts in this thread to model it, I'm sure you can dig around in those. This is assuming one target. Multiple targets will make haste a LOT more attractive. For demonology haste is obviously less important since it doesn't add dps to your demon. It'll still be good though. Either way, the spreadsheet should accurately tell you what your benefit from haste is. In my opinion haste is pretty damn good aside from the spreadsheet conclusions. It effectively lowers your reaction time with spells that have a cast time like banish/fear. It also increases your aoe abilities significantly, and none of the other stats do this. | ||||||||||||
| #1877 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
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| #1878 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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On a side note is there a set lifetap rotation or ideal life tap rotation for destro locks? For example 5 bolts 2 taps or 4 bolts 3 taps. etc etc. Is there such a thing or is it too dynamic do to encounters and does the spreadsheet show this somewhere. | ||||||||||||
| #1879 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1880 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
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edit: Oh yeah Galzohar is correct, LT caps at 50% haste (789 rating), not 33%. Last edited by rochan : 03/13/08 at 12:59 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1881 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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If healer efficiency is a factor, I typically tap once and receive a heal over time effect, and make maximum use of that. However, 95% of raiding time has healers looking for something to do. | ||||||||||||
| #1882 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
haste scaling
Lifetap will reach the cap at 50% haste, not 33%. Haste is a speed increase, not a cast time reduction. And even if you magically reach that, it just means haste goes back to its almost-as-good 2.3 values (affecting everything except 1.5s cast or instants).
As for 10 haste vs spell damage, the reason changing your stats makes the "winner" actaully change is that they're already extremely close to start with. While it's not a horrible assumption to make that your haste will drop in value vs +damage as you gear up with sunwell gear, remember that: A. Your spell damage will also go up (maybe not as much as haste, but enough to not pre-jump to conclusions about haste vs damage without further research looking at full sunwell gear). B. They're so close that even if damage ends up surpassing haste (per itemization point, 1 haste rating is realistically always better than 1 spell damage but costs more (see: gems)), it doesn't really make a difference. So much that the inaccuracy of even the spreadsheets is probably bigger than the difference between the stats. As for maxDPS.com, I would advise avoiding it, as I noticed a few errors in it before even seeing how it actually calculates things - and heard it also calculates things wrong (such as using a 1 roll system which had been shown to be most likely incorrect - while doesn't make much difference on results when you're near the hit cap it shows the site is unreliable). Stick to spreadsheets that actually let the public see how things are calculated and give feedback so you get minimal amount of errors. | ||||||||||||
| #1883 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
[Leggings of Channeled Elements] offpiece is slightly better than [Vestments of the Sea-Witch] as the offpiece which is a little bit better than [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] as the offpiece in most spread sheet tests I've done. I can't recall off hand, but I think T6 chest is slightly behind [Robes of Rhonin] test it on the sheets with your gear to be sure.
As far as haste and mana scaling, the only area where this is an issue now that life tap speed scales is other mana regen methods (pots, blessing, totem, sp). But since the majority of our mana still comes from life tap its not as significant, but it is definitely something to think about when gathering large amounts of haste over damage. Last edited by Eph : 03/13/08 at 1:31 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1884 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
While there are diminishing returns with haste due to taking less advantage of your mana regen from non-lifetap sources, the actual effect is quite neglicible if you look at the spreadsheet. The main thing that makes more haste cause other stats to become better is simply becuase any stat you stack will make the other stats better due to them being multipicative (dps = damage per spell * crit multiplier * debuff multiplier * speed * etc...), so the partial derivative of dps by any of your stats will be higher when you increase any other stat but not when you increase the stat itself. That means that the more you increase crit, for example, the more dps you'd gain out of hit/damage/haste/etc but crit will still give the same increase (taking first order approximation of the dps increase of those stats, which is pretty damn close to their true value for realistic item upgrade changes).
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| #1885 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Dragones |
Gems
nvm
Last edited by Dragones : 03/15/08 at 3:23 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1886 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
I've actually found that +10 haste is showing up as the best dps in my sheet.
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| #1887 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #1888 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
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Anyone found a way to measure ISB uptime from a WWS report? I know the spreadsheets have estimated values, but I don't think my raids are getting close to that number. I often see all 4 charges used before I can get my next cast off. | ||||||||||||
| #1889 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Ultimately, using any of the 3 gems, and 2 greens/purples somewhere for the meta, is going to be the best approach. | ||||||||||||
| #1890 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
I know I'll be, for the first time in like, ever, socketing for bonuses. With all gear filled with reckless pyrestones/spinels.
As it stands atm T6 shoulders + Illidan Head for meta fixin' seem like the best choice, to be replaced by a probable KJ head (at least haven't found a better combo yet which is why, unless I will find it, I'm setting myself in line for a "ninja" on Illidan head, which, just like Greatstaff and RoAK, I've passed plenty of times and now there's half the casters fighting over). | ||||||||||||
| #1891 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Modez |
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The owner of Blizzard must play a lock | ||||||||||||
| #1892 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
Hm, gemming(chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.2.beta)
1484 spelldam, 29,42 crit, 200 hit rating, 366 haste(I call this default gear) First line is SB, 2nd line is IM+IC. 1484= DPS median: 2137 1484= DPS median: 2178 I resocket all yellow slots to 10 haste, 1418dam, 421 haste: 1418= DPS median: 2121 1418= DPS median: 2181 Even resocketting all red gems to haste/dam, 1394dam, 441 haste: 1394= DPS median: 2118 1394= DPS median: 2169 These numbers puzzle me slightly, even though I ran 10k cycles to check. Haste seems to be worth a little less than 1.2 dam for SB and IC which would be what most people said so far. Running the numbers again with +265 spelldam for raid environment: 1749= DPS median: 2446 1749= DPS median: 2474 1683= DPS median: 2452 1683= DPS median: 2474 1659= DPS median: 2443 1659= DPS median: 2476 Well, my calculation would say that it is kinda exactly 1.2:1 - thus it doesn't matter at all which gem you socket from 12dam/10haste/5haste&6dam Difference in those numbers is only 28:30 life taps(from 1749:1659) | ||||||||||||
| #1893 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
Is it worth having an affliction lock in raids? Assume (in 2.4) a raid with two caster groups, both have 3 casters (fire lock/mage), a shadow priest, and a shaman. The affl lock is in the tank group, providing a 13% coe. If all the other locks/mages do about 2k dps (reasonable figure considering raid setup and full t6 etc) then the total gain is 3% of 12k dps = 360 dps. Meanwhile, the affl lock is doing considerably less than 2k dps, and in my experience, less than 1650, resulting in a net dps loss for the raid. So for max dps purposes (ignoring the gain of imp + SE), all locks should be destro. Am I missing anything here, or is this correct?
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| #1894 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
You do not bring affliction warlocks because of Malediction. I'm a hardcore aff lock, and even I admit that--the loss of ISB uptime generally evens it out (subject to restrictions, may not apply to all cases), and the loss of personal DPS usually makes up any gain you might have been able to inch out.
You bring an affliction warlock to progression content for Shadow Embrace, because it's equivalent to 5% more tank stamina and 5% more healing on the tank. And while he's there, he's blood pact bitch if you have a spare spot in your tank group. When content becomes farm content that 5% stam/heal stops mattering so much. But on farm content, I don't see the point of min-maxing so much anyways. The way I tend to think of it is, Malediction makes up over the raid for some of the sacrifice of taking SE, which is often a required talent on hard fights. You are correct that from a DPS-only perspective, all locks should be destro. I merely point out that a DPS-only perspective is not always appropriate. | ||||||||||||
| #1895 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vazu |
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| #1896 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Brachamul |
And boomkins!
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| #1897 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Dracosani |
This probably falls in the stupid question category but I wanted to silence the spread of misinformation. A Warlock in my guild claims COE somehow improves Rogue damage (poisons?) and that he tested it with a guild rogue on various mobs. I just wanted a nod from you folks here that this is complete BS as he wont believe me.
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| #1898 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ masanbol |
CoE does not affect nature damage, or Elemental shamans would benefit from it as well. They do not.
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| #1899 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Xiteg |
sorry if i am doing this wrong since i cannot seem to make a new thread for my question.
with the new incinerate coming out in 2.4 will this actually bring fire locks to be able to compete with shadow destruction? or is the shadow coefficients still to good? | ||||||||||||
| #1900 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1901 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
Someone asked this already, someone answered this already. Please look before posting. Short answer: it depends.
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| #1902 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Eradorn |
Choosing curses
In my 25-mans, we have 2 -3 locks most of the time. I am Aff/Ruin, the others are both Desto. One consistently uses CoS, and I haven't run enough with the other to determine what she uses, but I wonder what I should be casting. I gain SIGNIFICANT dps from Agony (imp agony and contagion) and before you say get rid of imp agony, where else to put those points? Yeah.
Is there a certain threshold where I should switch to Elements/Recklessness? I have read through and it seems to be debated, and the only example on the first page is Doom vs. Rec which helps me none. Would it be even better to be the one that casts shadow and get Malediction and make the Desto lock get the other? I want to assist the raid, but it is hard enough keeping DPS up with hunters without losing my best DPS spell. Thanks guys. | ||||||||||||
| #1903 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #1904 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Chir |
3 locks and a standard raid set-up? If so then all 3 major debuff curses should be used. CoR is not only extra damage for Melee/Hunters (+ pets) - it's also extra threat for the tanks.
Agony will be a short-term gain for you, long-term loss for the raid. As Tricky has also noted - If someone has Malediction then it should be a clear case of that person on CoS (as long as your using a standard raid set-up i.e. a couple of Spriests & 3 x Warlocks). Last edited by Chir : 03/14/08 at 12:51 PM. Reason: clarification | ||||||||||||
| #1905 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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As far as the thresholds: Shadows increases shadow/arcane damage and mana returned by shadow priests by 10-13% Elements increases fire/frost damage by 10-13% Recklessness increases physical damage by 5-6% and threat cap by some smaller amount Agony/Doom increases personal dps by 100-200 (depending on gear/encounter) Rank these according to what adds the most to raid dps for your particular raid. | ||||||||||||
| #1906 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Xiteg |
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and yes i did look through all the thread titles in the last 4 pages. | ||||||||||||
| #1907 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wednesday |
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If you're not Demo or Destro, you should have Malediction and Shadow Embrace. You should also take UA over Ruin. | ||||||||||||
| #1908 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
It's in this thread multiple times. People are likely to have come up with most questions you could come up with. It's worth verifying it's at least not in the thread in which you're asking.
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| #1909 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
He is not being a smart ass about it... If you had read through you would have seen it, trying looking for posts around the date that the change was announced on the PTR, you'll find lots of data and tests that were done on PTR and on spreadsheets.
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| #1910 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Eradorn |
Thanks for the responses. This helps chose between the curses (we have 2 always, sometimes 3 locks).
As for UA vs. Ruin, I thought that Ruin scales better as per this thread (first page). Has this been reversed? Looking through, it seems like there is a LOT of disagreement here. Thanks again for all the help. | ||||||||||||
| #1911 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
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| #1912 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
It's also impossible to determine a breakpoint in gear as even if you assume hit capped, the more spell damage you have the more crit you will need for ruin to surpass UA. So as your gear goes up the minimum crit required goes up as well, but the crit required doesn't go up as fast as your actual crit chance so you will eventually reach it. Also having the 4/5 T6 bonus drops the crit requirement for ruin to top UA noticeably.
At the end remember that if in a stand and shoot fight you play the same as the spreadsheet is assuming (regarding dot-gap, delay between casts, etc), and it tells you UA and ruin builds are equal, in practice UA will be a little better due to multi-dotting and losing less DPS to movement (as you cast DoTs while standing still for 8.33% of the time while those dots do a LOT more than 8.33% of your DPS). With enough movement the crit requirement for ruin to beat UA goes up, especially if it's a lot of movement that you can choose when to do, but also if it's random there's a very high chance you will have to move in between UAs - worst case would be having to move right before needing to refresh UA you'd lose the same relative DPS as ruin would lose. Any other case would favor UA. | ||||||||||||
| #1913 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Wingalock | |||||||||||||
| #1914 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Emolate |
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| #1915 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Rhadd |
Does anyone know the change to spirit increased our pet's mana regen as well? I have been trying to get on the ptr to see for myself but one of the patches kept corrupting it.
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| #1916 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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I have to admit that I'm at a loss to find a scenario where gear based boosts to pet mana OO5SR mana regen would actually matter. | ||||||||||||
| #1917 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Rhadd |
Actually the one thing I wanted to test was if having a higher than average int value, possibly through the fel intellect talent, would be able to give higher than intended mana regen values to help out affliction warlocks to dark pact more often. It might help while leveling(as if it wasn't easy enough to level as a warlock), but you are right, there really are not many places where taking advantage of this would be beneficial.
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| #1918 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Akj |
I remember reading a post on the wow forums about the imp having 80 odd additional mp5 due to the spirit change. With BoK, BoW, sporeling snacks, arcane intellect buffs I'm sure there'll be a notable increase in the imp's regen. I do not see it affecting affliction dps though.
Edit: Found a couple of anecdotal posts in this thread. Wish we had more numbers. Last edited by Akj : 03/15/08 at 6:31 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1919 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Dark pact is already returning almost as little mana as life tap does in 2.3. Having the imp regen more or even having the imp out doesn't provide any dps increase worth mentioning. To clarify, on the spreadsheet I lose less than 1 DPS by disabling dark pact completely. Aside from talents that give 0 dps, dark pact is probably the worst "DPS per point" talent in the game ;p
Therefore no matter how much you increase your imp's regen, the dps increases resulting will be neglicible. | ||||||||||||
| #1920 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | KnThrak |
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If you enable Dark Pact it first drains the pet empty, then Lifetaps onwards. So if you disable Dark Pact, it "merely" replaced the existant Dark Pacts with Lifetaps, enabling Dark Pact doesn't mean you use 0 Lifetaps. And that's the gain: The more of your manaregen is from DP (not LT), the less healing you need. THe more the healers love you (edit) Erm, for clarification: Yeah, there is no DPS gain. There is a HNPS (healing needed per second) loss though | ||||||||||||
| #1921 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1922 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | PSGarak |
It's already the best grinding talent in the game, and in raids it completely erases one of the two disadvantages to our sole longevity tool. Not everything has to give a strict ideal-brick-wall raid-DPS increase to be a worthwhile talent. Having to damage myself is an acceptable part of the class; being able to damage myself less is a welcome benefit.
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| #1923 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
For grinding as affliction just go to legion hold (center area with the fast respawning warlocks) with a healer - you'll need him to loot mobs for you (ffa loot) more than you'll need him to heal you, but you will definitely consume mana way faster than your pet regenerates. I suppose using only UA and corruption (and a SL added on the few higher HP mobs around there) for spells helps the mana/sec usage go way up though
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| #1924 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Perestroika |
I use Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft for farming legion hold warlocks. Siphon Life -> Curse of Agony -> Corruption and the mob will die. Sacrificed VW, Shadow Ward whenever it is up, Siphon Life ticks, and Death Coil will be enough to sustain your mana output and the damage you will take, with no downtime at all. Any shadow resist you can get is also godly.
There are a few useless talents in that build but it's mostly to get to the important things. With this spec and the three DoT method of farming I can do 80-100 marks an hour along with whatever cloth, greens, and armaments I get. I'm sure there are people that could do much better then me aswell. | ||||||||||||
| #1925 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Just using a simple SL/SL build for Legion Hold, Siphon->Corr->CoA with SLed Succu on defensive. 2T5 + 2T6 and some Drain Souls from time to time make for 0 downtime. Only 1 problem, needs a looter for effectiveness since the mobs seem to have a very fast despawn time.
Managed to keep about 2/3 of the place cleared when I wanted to drive other people farming away but normally, solo, it's slower since you have to loot all the long line of corpses in time. | ||||||||||||
| #1926 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
With a healer you're saving yourself a global cooldown on every mob and being allowed to be completely careless on top of the main reason of having someone to loot for you. I doubt you can match 1/2 the marks/hour one could do when combined with a healer, although I'm not completely sure.
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| #1927 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Roaminggnome |
I'm sure at some point your effective marks/hour would be limited by mob respawn time, assuming that you really can clear 2/3 of the place running solo. In fact, you might make less since you are splitting your gains with your healbot.
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| #1928 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
It's limited by corpse despawn time. I never kill more than 10-12 mobs continuously but when it gets too crowded I just run and dot continuously to scare away competition. Of course, most of the loot there is lost but with a looter ... that's the speed.
And if it has to be a looter then something that can also do 1-2k healing now and then would be best since sometimes you do lose hp, nothing that can't be refilled with killing 1 mob with SL+Corr+CoS + both drains but it happens (fear, a mob manages to cast the fire thingy). As for my speed during killing, it's 7 insta casts/cycle, 2x 3 dots, 1x LT, repeat until you think corpses might start despawning or you get bored if you got someone doing the looting for you. Also, I avoid the elite and the warlock mobs. | ||||||||||||
| #1929 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1930 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
I just keep my raid spec for grinding there and one shot if I crit. I've only been there with a healer a few times (a feral druid who helps kill a little too while giving me heals, gathering mobs, and looting everything.) Together we pretty much doubled my solo gold per hour but of course we split it in the end so there hasn't really been a gain.
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| #1931 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | anton |
This question is for all BT-clearing/cleared warlocks and/or guilds out there:
Our guild has had Illidan on farm now for about 2 months. We're clearing BT in one night (our best so far is a little over 4 and a half hours). That said, we've been having a little discrepancies with proper grouping, mainly from the warlock PoV. Us warlocks have seemed to viewed as the black sheep of the guild the past month. I won't get into details, but mainly, every other class is represented at the officer chat level and generally people get what they want in their group. The guild leader is a fury warrior and the 3 officers are a holy priest (she's also the raid leader), mage, and hunter. We have been pushing for at least a shaman the past month. I've done some research and I've pretty much determined that rogues and warlocks are the 2 best DPS classes at the PvE level. We might have 2, maybe 3 spriest per raid, and we might have 2 maybe 3 resto shamans per raid. However, those 2 spriests and 2 shamans were normally reserved for the raid leader and mage officer, and rarely we would ever get one prior to having Illidan down. For the past month, we've been pushing for a shaman and we do get it for the most part. A spriest is still a treat, however they keep hinting that this will change in 2.4 (cause of the spirit change?) It's just that every other WWS parse I've looked, the warlocks seemed to be treated like kings. They get a shaman, maybe 2 (or at least 2 bloodlusts), spriest, a leather worker or 2 (for drums, but I won't be picky, just making a point). And we don't do horrible either, damage wise, there's always a lock in the top 5 for all the bosses, maybe 2 (or more) depending on the fight. Now, I'm not trying to bash my guild, I love my guild. We are disciplined (for as much as we screw around), we have fun, we make fun of each other, and we have an extremely light raiding schedule when we aren't pushing content, yet we progress. It's just that I think our guild is undermining the potential that us warlocks have as a class and they keep blaming us about someone pulling 2 months ago as an excuse or reason to hinder increasing our DPS in case "it happens again." I guess my question is if I was wrong in thinking that warlocks are not a great DPS class, or that it's just a matter of standing and that I just don't have a say in the matter. Or maybe I'm right and our guild underestimates the warlock as a class, and it's potential and how they should exploit the fact that we are powerful and that I should make a point about this in a drama-free manner. Any idea/comments would be nice, thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #1932 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Evidicus |
I feel your pain. In my guild, Warlocks are pretty much treated as an afterthought. Mages get both a shadow priest and an elemental shaman most nights, while our Affliction lock gets put into the tank group and Destro locks such as myself go into dreaded Group 3, or as I like to call it, "The Island of Misfit DPS".
Part of the problem is that our Officer core is pretty short-sighted when it comes to Destruction specs. The guild has been around since pre-BC when locks were all Affliction and all completely self-sufficient. The concept of a warlock needing some sort of mana return is alien to them. The other part of the problem is that our mages and elemental shaman are squeaky wheels. If they don't all get their perfectly stacked group, they start calling out for innervates. (This floored me the first time I heard it. I played pre-BC with another guild, and if a mage ever had the nerve to call out for an innervate there, he'd have had a boot put up his ass so far, he'd have tasted leather for a month.) Sure enough though, if they squeak enough, they get the grease - even if that pulls a shadow priest from the healing group. It's pretty sad. I think the real kicker is that even without any sort of group synergy I can still consistently out DPS all but one of our mages. That's the real reason I think Blizzard reversed the change to lifetap. If they nerfed it, then the mage argument of needing mana return more than us would go out the window. If group assignments were based purely on DPS alone then it would be no contest, at least in my guild. I guess what I am trying to say is that, as sad a state as you are in, you are not alone. Some of the more educated and less closed-minded guilds out there realize our full potential and at the very least split up their boomkin/elemental shaman/shadow priests between mages and locks so we can all get some sort of benefit. For those of us stuck in less than optimal conditions, we just have to try to be as self-sufficient as we possibly can. I have a potion spec'd alt who makes all the mana pots I chain-chug on bosses, and I'll probably drop enchanting for alchemy on this toon in 2.4 just for the caster DPS alchemist stone for the +40% potion effect. Now that the stone has been changed to +dmg instead of +hit, it's become a little more viable for me at least. | ||||||||||||
| #1933 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
There's a thread about caster group-stacking with some numbers
Best use of caster-buffing classes So you might be able to make an argument that stacking the warlock group would net you x more raid dps than stacking some other group and this would give your raid a better chance to beat some soft/hard enrage. In general, final damage out should not be your personal performance metric, because it has so many factors that are beyond your control. I know my dps varies over 30% on the same fights week to week just from group composition and crit randomness. While it's satisfying to get in the perfect group and destroy meters, the statistic I actually find useful is percent time spent casting over the encounter length. That is something you can control and it is really the only metric that makes sense for 21/40 warlocks. I'd worry less about the final output when it's not preventing you from killing bosses. | ||||||||||||
| #1934 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Initially our warlocks didn't always have shaman and spriest, actually 2-3 mages went in and maybe, maybe a warlock.
But we still did decently and once we got better attendance with 2nd spriest and a 2nd resto shaman we got them and started showing what we can do when supported. Of course, our healers actually use pots and except for mother, RoS and gurtogg they don't take the spriests (though atm spriests get the innervates and people don't use as many pots). In the end, yes, I have to ... idle sometimes due to threat but it's only for 2-3 seconds when I'm full mana and I can still pull 2k+ dps on plenty of fights even with idling and abysmal luck on crit (10% lower) and normal raid setup. Oh, and ditch the affli lock to destro until next patch imo . your tank doesn't need imp either at this point, or shadow embrace. | ||||||||||||
| #1935 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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A shaman is the very least they can do for you. Wrath of Air and Bloodlust are great buffs, and the totem of wrath is a nice bonus. I wouldn't try hogging the shadow priest, since we do have life tap. It's a dps increase, but other classes do benefit more from them. If I were you, I'd demand a trial run where a destro lock also gets all the goodies, including SP and Shaman. Then have a look at the meters. | ||||||||||||
| #1936 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Kyth |
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Two bloodlusts on a lock group, honestly, sounds rare. Most raids that stack BL's do it on the melee group. That all said, it's an uphill battle. Many people have "mage" associated in their mind with "the class you buff and give everything to" regardless of what meters say (or specific people's skill in a given guild.) The best tack I know of is to stop treating it as a class thing and to instead talk about "can we make a caster dps group with the top dps'ers regardless of class" and go with a mix of mages/locks in there depending on skill. ![]()
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Last edited by Kyth : 03/17/08 at 5:09 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1937 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1938 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Given same group buffs (spriest + resto shaman for my guild) they can be very close when they do try and even beat you if they get luckier (crit rates are a pain sometimes). And yes, making a dps group of your best casters sound like the best idea but of course your current leadership will say the mages are the best if you never get into a decent group. Just make your best mage stay out of spriest/shaman group and your best lock into one of those, for a couple of resets. And pray your best lock is good enough.
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| #1939 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
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To make it a bit clear, one of our mages tried that (didn't have 2t5) and he got the result I wrote above. He was also getting nice results as fire, being overall out best dps mage. Without 2t5 afaik AB isn't even higher dps compared to fireball/scorch cycle, just wastes more mana. And there's no molten fury to stack with heroism on the last % of a fight. Just poke em and tell them they're pretty much wasting that spriest they're getting if they're arcane without 2t5 and proper gearing up, and they still won't stand a chance until next patch changes to regen I guess. Last edited by dakalro : 03/17/08 at 8:22 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #1940 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Fafhrd |
In my experience, mages and warlocks in "perfect" gear, with same support and with good players, are remarkably well balanced dps-wise. There aren't many encounters where you can directly compare them though; Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, Naj'entus (disregarding dps loss due to ice tomb/sleep/spine etc). Of course, that is if the warlock don't get to use a damage curse, then he'll usually win. Although it's mostly up to who is lucky with crits.
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| #1941 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kremlan |
Sorry if this already has been discussed and I missed it, but is spell haste any good in small amounts or do you need to stack it before you notice the benefits from it? I'm asking because of the new Sunwell gems, socketing all yellow sockets with spell haste or dmg/spell haste gems seems to the best +dmg increase in theory. But will it be worth it for me, who right now has 0 spellhaste, or should I wait until i get some from the Sunwell gear before I socket spellhaste?
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| #1942 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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Has anyone run the numbers on this to see where it stacks up trinket wise compared to other trinkets out there. | ||||||||||||
| #1943 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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You can sort of see this effect even in the theorycrafting here on these forums. I'm not the first person to notice this, but joe schmo mage sometimes insists on a flamecap/destropot rotation and refuses to invis/evocate, because it cuts into dps uptime, while locks are expected to Soulstone (at least on Teron)/Lifetap, which also cuts into dps uptime. | ||||||||||||
| #1944 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • Roped |
I made it a personal crusade to see Warlocks become the "DPS" casters in the raids ever since the insult that was Naxx put us into that Imp/Curse bitch position.
The best way I found of doing this was consistently dominating every other DPS class in raids, regardless of what group I was in or what buffs I was receiving. As I began to beat every DPS nearly every fight, without buffs, while they were getting fed Heroism and Shadow Priests, it became apparent that Warlocks brought serious DPS to the table that couldn't be overlooked. We went from running 1-2 Warlocks a raid, in the MT group with an Imp without Heroisms, drums, or Shadow Priests to running 3 Warlocks in a raid all in the Elemental Shaman/Shadow Priest group. Needless to say, the Mages are pretty emo about it. | ||||||||||||
| #1945 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
I think it's also a case of people assuming that mages "need" an SP more than warlocks, when really, given the length of most boss fights, neither requires one, they simply gain DPS. Realistically, all warlocks and mages in a given raid should have a shadow priest, if your (and by "your" I mean anton) guild is remotely serious about getting the most DPS out of a raid. People seem to think that warlocks don't have mana issues because of life tap - I spend my entire mana pool plus a pot in a little over a minute and from then on my DPS drops substantially as I have to tap every few casts. Life tap only really shines when you have a very long fight like council, where classes without it can potentially go oom after using all their regen abilities/cooldowns, and then do nothing. if you don't have enough SPs for all the casters to have one, there's not really any reason to put the mages with one but not the locks. Everyone assumes that warlocks can just lifetap with no DPS loss, how often do your mages evocate during bosses?
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| #1946 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
That sounds right. Personally I use ((# of shadowbolts cast * 2.5) + (# of lifetaps cast * 1.5)) / Encounter Length instead of WWS dps time, and adjust for haste effects and movement/incapacitates as applicable.
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| #1947 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
Has anyone considered (or knows of an existing) ISB uptime parser for WWS reports? Basically, a script you could point at a WWS to parse out the SB crit events and determine the actual (rather than TC'd) uptime?
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| #1948 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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In theory, if you know about all debuffs and they're static (say, on Theron, where debuffs will never fall off), you could try to make educated guesses about people's spellpower and talents, and from there determining how much of their damage was boosted. They'd still be guesses, though. With 2.4. WWS will be changed and it might be possible. I haven't looked into it. | ||||||||||||
| #1949 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
The solution is to not have a female raid leader...
On a more serious note, the whole fact you have a "leftover" group like most raid groups do means you will always have people in that group and never actually reach a point where your raid is optimal. Then it's all about deciding who gets leftover treatment. Since elemental shamans and mages (and moonkins if you actually run with them) can't run without a shadow priest, and putting any kind of shaman with the shadow priest is a good idea, the natural choice is to put all the mages with a shadow priest and a shaman (elemental if you have, resto otherwise). First shaman in the raid always goes in the melee group regardless of spec (but enhancement is priority of course), windfury is just too important for them. Tank group will optimally have improved devo aura, tree aura and an imp - buffing the tank with those buffs generally helps the raid a lot more than synergiesing that pally druid and affliction warlock. The people that the raid leaders actually have a choice about are the healers, warlocks and hunters. Since healers don't seem really *need* a shadow priest for any (or at least almost any) fight in 25-man that is done with a reasonable gear level (as in, a good mix of t5/badge/kara gear at minimum) if they use consumeables, while DPS can always increase their DPS with more support no matter how many consumeables they use, it's generally better to buff DPS than buffing healers. If you have 3 shadow priests and 4-5 shamans in your raid (which is actually a good thing, expection being that I'm not sure about shadow priests being worth it at extreme high end gear considering the shorter fights and lower scaling, but it's generally safer to assume you need them as the extra heals from VE and extra heals from more healer mana, even if not needed, does help), you can just buff everyone. If you have less, it's generally better to buff dps over the healers. At least with a shaman, as the mana totems are nothing compared to his DPS totems in terms of raid benefit, and the DPS totems are quite wasted on healers (even wrath of air is just 100 healing which in terms of relative increases is not much compared to WoA for casters or GoA for hunters). If all fails, show your raid leaders the spreadsheet and show them the numerical/relative DPS increase you're going to see if you were given a shaman and a shadow priest. Once you put in your base+consumeabled stats, adding mp5 for a shaman+sp and some totems and seeing the dps increase resulting is quite easy. Even seeing raid DPS increase due to added improved shadowbolt is possible to take into consideration (although a little harder as your ISB contribution is only integrated into your own DPS via the "TNS" (to next stat) part and not the actual dps it shows when you increase/reduce crit - but you can still see the change in ISB uptime and make your conclusions). | ||||||||||||
| #1950 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arnath |
My lock has been Tailoring/Herbalism since early TBC when I realized the Tailoring items were totally worth skilling it up. Since it seems that Tailoring will continue to be useful through Sunwell/WotLK, I'm clearly going to keep that. However, I was considering dropping Herbalism for either Jewelcrafting or Enchanting. JCing would give me a [Loop of Forged Power] which is the best ring in 2.4 as far as I can tell as well as some unique gems that would be (very) slight upgrades in certain slots. Enchanting on the other hand would be just 24 spell damage from the ring enchants. Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?
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| #1951 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Fizwidget |
Loop is BoE, the JC neck is BoP. If you can get enough sunmotes, you can get the ring without having to spec JC.
Engineering for the helm, or enchanting for 24 dmg is the best bang for your tradeskill-slot buck. (after tailoring, of course) [Annihilator Holo-Gogs] I'm partial to engineering, its cheap and you get to wear goggles. On the other hand, if you can D/E, you never have to worry about finding a D/E'r for your 5-mans. EDIT:Fixed iLink Last edited by Fizwidget : 03/17/08 at 1:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1952 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
Leatherworking is better, no? [Drums of Battle] is an effective 20 personal haste, but also 20 haste for the other four members of your group. [Sunfire Robe] has 14 crit and 13 haste over the [Robes of Ghostly Hatred], drums are a clear winner (assuming you are in a group with at least one other dps).
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| #1953 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vlar |
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You do not use any equipment slots for the 24 damage basicallly making it "free" Also, while you may upgrade the helm before the expac (not an engineer, so I do not know how powerful the helms are), you won't upgrade the ring enchants as you will be able to toss it on any upgrade you get. Thirdly, it is REALLY nice being able to enchant your own stuff, God knows how often I have gotten annoyed that I could put the Mongoose or Executioner enchant on someone, but I have to bother someone else to get it for my warrior. | ||||||||||||
| #1954 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Zaq |
So I was curious what other people were planning with regards to keeping their 4T6 bonuses. I'd assume that everyone is taking the [Boots of the Malefic] and[Bracers of the Malefic] and nearly everyone is taking the [Belt of the Malefic] as well. Obviously your profession choices may dictate these somewhat, but I thought it might be interesting to see what old t6 item people considered most viable.
What then, are people considering for the following tradeoffs: Gloves: [Gloves of the Malefic]][Sunfire Handwraps] Chest [Robe of the Malefic][Robes of Ghostly Hatred][Sunfire Robe] Shoulders: [Mantle of the Malefic][Amice of the Convoker] Legs: [Leggings of the Malefic][Leggings of Calamity][Pantaloons of Growing Strife] Helm: [Hood of the Malefic][Cowl of the Illidari High Lord][Annihilator Holo-Gogs] Last edited by Zaq : 03/17/08 at 2:55 PM. Reason: Formatting never hurts | ||||||||||||
| #1955 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #1956 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
So far, it seems like it would be "optimal" to change Enchanting to Leatherworking after you get both Mana Attuned Band & Loop of Forged Power. Unless there is an uber ring from Kil Jaeden, there is nothing better than these 2 rings. The other profession of course being Tailoring for the chest.
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| #1957 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
Try Illidan head + t6 shoulders ( + all else you can get from Sunwell) vs t6 head + Amice. And there's also some ilvl 164 head dropping in Sunwell if I'm not mistaken (hopefully I'm not).
Most of the bonus comes from needing to fill 2 blue gems which you can get socket bonuses for in Illidan head and t6 shoulders. | ||||||||||||
| #1958 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bandoer |
The Tailoring Robe can drop on the way to Kalecgos, so that raises the value of tailoring since most of us would be upgrading T6 chest to Sunfire Robe. Regarding optimizing professions for progression, it's somewhat off to be considering a M'uru or Kil'Jaeden drop. JC is a similar scenario if you don't have Translucent Spellthread Necklace, as the next good neck drops of Eredar Twins, which may be a rare drop.
Kil'Jaeden loot is pretty much inconsequential because at that point you've beat the game and any further BC gear is just for dressing up. | ||||||||||||
| #1959 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Zaq |
Right, I'm fully capable of running the spreadsheet for my stuff, but which old t6 to keep is probably the most compelling gearing choice for SP. Dakarlo also already made a suggestion somewhat different from yours, so I don't see it as a wasted discussion.
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| #1960 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
Well for professions, tailoring will give you the biggest item upgrade early. But from a guild perspective, my guild has over 8 dps casters who are all tailors. Whereas the JC neck probably no-one can actually use at the moment, and it gives roughly half the dps upgrade that the robe does. Yet later on the robes off of M'uru will be the equivalent to sunfire (he drops same ilvl robes - not referring to the healer hand-in version seen on vendor) and the neck off of Twins is still worse than the JC one + has hit (a disadvantage for overall gearing options).
So if you are looking at ranking them with rough numbers it would go: Pre-Muru/Twins loot options - Leatherworking (75) - Tailoring (50ish) - Jewelcrafting/Enchanting (both around 25) Then with all loot - Leatherworking (75) - Enchanting (25) - Jewelcrafting (15) - Tailoring (0-? - depends on stats of drop robe) I am very loathe to drop enchanting for WOTLK, + the fact that there has been a boss drop healer and physical dps ring, means there should be a caster one somewhere. So optimally one would have either tailoring or jc + enchanting then drop enchanting for LW, but really as long as you have two professions which actually contribute it is not horrible. As it stands currently with the t6 pieces, the helm + offset shoulders is superior because illidan helm + t6 shoulders has way too much hit assuming you have the best items pre-sunwell. But then again KJ should drop a higher ilvl helm with no hit. It is debatable whether it is 'useless' to talk about KJ item drops because, unless sunwell takes under 3 months to clear you should not expect to have all of the 3 new pieces assuming even distribution among your fellow raiders, let alone the offset pieces. All this talk about ideal pre-kj items don't really come into play until you will have the zone on farm anyway, so considering ideal gear up to a certain point is somewhat of a stupid idea, just take whatever drops that is an upgrade and once everything is on farm it is the time to work out an ideal set. Personally I already have the illidan helm so from a guild perspective it is better for me to use that + t6 shoulders until KJ helm, while letting others pick up the shoulders off of twins. | ||||||||||||
| #1961 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
I've found the shoulders + illidari helm to be a better combination than using the malefic helm. I'm guessing this is because i assume i'm running without a elemental shaman, and the hit on that combo was something in the region of 30 more. Either way its a 1 DPS difference, and the optimal setup depends on your raid/group. Combined with the fact that we still haven't seen everything that drops in the sunwell, i wouldn't make any absolute statements on the best gear combination.
What chest drops off Muru? | ||||||||||||
| #1962 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
Proffessions seem to be all about speculating what blizzard will bring next. I mean for now leatherworking is just extremely powerful I doubt any proffession can beat it, however it's not safe to speculate that it'll stay like that in the long run (WotLK and beyond). You can almost safely assume blizzard will always give tailoring and jewelcrafting something nice for casters, and to a lesser degree engineering (I was actually disappointed although the epic goggles are kind of a rescue but far from enough - but you can never know). Leatherworking may or may not have something equivalent to drums - you can only feel safe to assume that it'll always have stuff for leather wearers but gambling WotLK will bring something equivalent to drums is just that - a gamble.
Bottom line is in the long run proffessions are a guessing game, and in that game I would play guessing tailoring/jewelcrafting or tailoring/enchanting. For right now leatherworking seem to be pretty hard to beat (I hadn't run the numbers but 80 haste rating for 4-5 people with 25% uptime (effectively 80-100 haste rating), even if it costs a global cooldown, is just a lot). | ||||||||||||
| #1963 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Cowl + t6 shoulders nets you: 78 stam 53 int 42 hit 60 crit 110 damage 1 red 1 yellow 1 blue skt Convoker + t6 helm nets you: 91 stam 64 int 16 hit 54 crit 30 haste 116 damage 1 red 2 yellow skt Given that 1 haste can be traded for 1 hit through gemming, the t6 helm combination has more dps stats, as well as more stam/int. The fact that there's a blue socket is moot. You're going to use either [Forceful Seaspray Emerald] or [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst] to fulfill your meta requirements, and you can throw those in yellow/red sockets. All the t6 shoulder combo does is force you to use your 2 blues in those 2 items; with all red and yellow sockets, you can put them anywhere. I do apologize, though, its close than I thought it would be, and I was unnecessarily snide. | ||||||||||||
| #1964 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | weet |
In all likelyhood KJ will drop a 'proper' caster dps helm, just as m'uru will drop robes which are not the ones with spirit.
The only reason we know of the healer helm off of KJ is because it is able to be turned into the vendor for the 'healer dps' version, so it shows up on the vendor. Just like when the PTR first came out, people were speculating that the only shoulders were the hand-in ones as well as the legs before brut and twins were killed and they dropped Leggings of Calamity/Amice of the Convoker. Quoting my old post! ![]()
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| #1965 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | anton |
I thank you all for your replies about raid grouping. I will look over it and consider a course of action.
As to the one troll that reposted my exact post on my guild's forums, I hope you forever burn in a sea of warlock Hell fire. That was completely not needed. | ||||||||||||
| #1966 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Lord Pendragon |
A quick question for the masters,
My affliction lock's current routine is to apply Unstable Affliction, Curse of Agony, Corruption, Drain Life, and Immolate, then begin spamming shadow bolts until the DoTs need to be reapplied. However, I've noticed my dps lagging in relation to a couple of demonology/destro locks I often raid with on this character. My gear (The World of Warcraft Armory) is on-par with theirs, so I'm wondering if perhaps my spell routine is sub-optimal. Thoughts? | ||||||||||||
| #1967 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Zephro |
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Anyway, the reason you're falling behind is that Affliction scales horribly with gear due to its overwhelming focus on just one damage stat (spellpower). Destro and demonology benefit greatly from crit and haste, neither of which do much for you. It doesn't matter how well you play, a destro-spec warlock is always going to do more damage simply because he gets more out of his gear upgrades. If you want to be competitive on damage meters, you'll have to respec (although Affliction can be useful as a raid-support spec if you take 5/5 shadow embrace and 3/3 malediction). | ||||||||||||
| #1968 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Carra |
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One advice would be to cast corruption after UA. They both have the same cooldown making them easier to cast together. And if two targets are tanked, put dots on the second one too. Your dots will do more damage then using shadowbolts. | ||||||||||||
| #1969 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | dakalro |
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On another hand I totally forgot about the useless gems becoming sort of semi not so useless. I'll have to redo sheet once I get home but afaik the difference was minor with my weirdo gemming amethysts in T6 (oops) with T6 helm + Amice. | ||||||||||||
| #1970 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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Keep in mind though that Elemental Shamans don't have a BoP crafted chestpiece. | ||||||||||||
| #1971 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
A WWS is more useful than an armory link, as an armory link will not show how much you're messing up your DoT refreshing and how much time you waste simply doing nothing. There have already been countless people saying their DPS doesn't match up, and the answer had always been that first they should actually try harder to dps, as they can do a lot more with that same gear if they just attack more (you'd think that's obviuos... but that's actually the #1 reason people have low dps), and 2nd (less important) is that they can fix a lot of things in their gear and spec quite easily.
You're affliction, you should never cast curse of agony on the main target in raids. And if you're off-dotting most likely some shadow priests are as well so you shouldn't CoA the off-target either. CoS (with malediction) on anything that has shadow casters attacking it - let the other warlocks cover curse of elements and curse of recklessness (which means if you have 3 or less warlocks NO warlock should be using a damage curse anyway). The DPS increase of malediction is better than any dps increase you could possibly get by using a DPS curse over another warlock who puts up CoS for you. You are definitely not anywhere near the gear level where destruction outDPSs affliction. You are, however, most likely at the skill level where the ease of playing destruction outDPSs affliction. It doesn't mean you should be destruction unless you completely give up on learning to play... You can easily upgrade your spell damage massively by getting frozen shadoweave and spellstrike and gem with 9 damage gems exclusively (your wand too!). Get S3 mage bracers. Replace the horseman's ring with the one from cenarion expedition exalted. Get the badge reward gloves. While you should use spellstrike, if you do use a meta gem use the 1/2 cast meta for affliction (which can be activated if you just socket everything with red except 1 purple gem). Farm a darkmoon card crusade and ditch that quag's eye. Your spec fails by not providing the raid with shadow embrace, no imporved lifetap, no malediction, no +5% crit on shadowbolts and no +range -threat on shadowbolts. You don't need the lifedrain and curse of agony talents and you really don't need demonic embrace and really really don't need fel intelect. Consider Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft with the last point going in either CoEx, improved imp or intensity, all nice to have but not at all nescessary. Since hit caps at 16%, you can drop a point from suppression for every wated 2% hit (aka 1 point if you have 18% hit (8% from gear), 2 points if you have 20% (10% from gear) etc) - although there isn't really anywhere useful to put those points so that change won't increase your dps, however it is definitely better than having >=18% +hit as anything above 16% doesn't do anything. Remember damage>=hit>haste>crit for affliction, with damage and hit being far above the other 2. For exact values consult with the spreadsheet. Last edited by galzohar : 03/20/08 at 4:12 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1972 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Jaeydn |
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On talk of professions I've not noticed anything definitive on the new Sorc Stone since it was changed from hit to damage. Any thoughts on how good it would be to take alchemy now over tailoring? | ||||||||||||
| #1973 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | ♦ Eph |
When comparing best in slot items wouldn't the Alch trinket have to be better than the Skull of Gul'dan assuming M'uru or KJ drop a nice caster trinket? So essentially it would be 8dmg and 40mp5 vs 25hit and 29 haste.
Though this does bring it back to the argument that best in slot doesn't matter if you include items from a cleared SWP (much less since you wouldn't be chain potting as much.) But lets just compare the second best trinket for now: [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone](40mp5) over [Hex Shrunken Head](25dmg) vs [Sunfire Robe](6dmg, 8haste, 14crit) over [Robes of Ghostly Hatred](3stm, 6int, 32spirit) To find the exact dps differences we'll have to pull out the spreadsheet, but I'm going to guess that Tailoring is going to stay ahead. Last edited by Eph : 03/18/08 at 12:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1974 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Lord Pendragon |
Thanks very much for the advice guys, especially Galzohar. Really appreciate the time it took for that in-depth reply. Looks like I've got some work ahead of me, both in terms of gear and playstyle.
One last follow-up question. You've suggested getting Spellstrike and arena gloves. I take it then that the warlock T4 set bonuses don't impress you? Last edited by Lord Pendragon : 03/18/08 at 1:01 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1975 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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| #1976 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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| #1977 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silverstorm |
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I would also posit hit > damage even for affliction. Nothing is worse to me than resisted dots that screw up the rotation. You lose the 1.5 seconds, then you lose Corruption uptime by waiting to resync with UA. I have not explicitly checked that with the spreadsheet (and it will overestimate DPS anyway). ![]()
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| #1978 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Elderx |
With my gear and spec, is it better to use [Quagmirran's Eye] + [Icon of the Silver Crescent]
or [Icon of the Silver Crescent] + [Battlemaster's Audacity] Armory link for gear The World of Warcraft Armory | ||||||||||||
| #1979 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Silverstorm |
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| #1980 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
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Your spell damage and crit are incredibly low for you to be attempting Destro. I even question your dest spec due to all your points in Fire talents, and no Soul Leech. You need to switch back to Affliction until you can get more crit/dmg gear and while you are Aff, use the Battlemaster's trinket. I know its not set it stone, but at least attempt to get to 1000 dmg and 20% crit, you are nowhere even in the ballpark. | ||||||||||||
| #1981 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Deathwing |
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| #1982 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | LockApologist |
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The 5 points that you have in Nether prot/Soul leech are just filler. Almost nothing of consequence procs nether prot in PvE, and Soul leech is just a waste. Having 5/5 Emberstorm allows you to swap to Incinerate without a huge DPS loss if a fight or raid make up favor it (fire mages + no spriest + only 1 lock, for example). | ||||||||||||
| #1983 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
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Nether Prot isnt a must have, but it sure is nice for Malacrass, Archimonde, Azgalor, Gorefiend, and I'm sure others that I'm leaving out right now. Either way SL/NP is way more beneficial then talent points that boost fire spells, when you should never be casting them except in very rare cases. | ||||||||||||
| #1984 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
[quote=Silverstorm;680207]I'll agree with the gear/playstyle/rotation comments and the majority of talent comments. There is a useful place for 2 of those points, and that's in Imp Drain Soul. More of your damage will come from affliction spells than shadowbolt, so the -10% threat there is valuable to some extent (depends on tank competence). Most likely that point in Amp Curse is useless, unless accompanied with CoEx (typically for Vashj strider kiting) or you actually get to CoA/CoD (not likely). The extra point could also go in shadowburn for lack of another place. It's saved me enough to warrant putting a point there. The single point in Imp Healthstone can also help with organizing all 3 healthstones in your raid, since a majority of builds seem to have 0 or 2 points there.
QUOTE] You're completely right for some reason I always forget to click those 2 points in improved drain soul - no matter how good your tank is it's definitely a better DPS gain than any other talent no matter how situational (think off-dotting). Amplify curse is nice for CoDing the off-dot target if not a lot of people are off-dotting it though. I find shadowburn less useful than the other options (1/3 improved imp or 1/2 intensity or CoEx). Going to try and edit the link to get threat reduction | ||||||||||||
| #1985 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arelenda |
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I enjoy Soul Leech, and typically make sure I'm never at full health to maximize its efficiency. I enjoy Nether Protection as well, it's super against dispellable dots and procs off Archi's fear. It's all details, though. Both NP&SL and Emberstorm/Immo are filler spells to me. Nice to have, but the key is S&F, Ruin and ISB. The rest is taste. This will probably change post 2.4. though. While ISB will still probably reign in raids, the difference will be much smaller between fire and shadow, boosting the effectiveness of fire talents. | ||||||||||||
| #1986 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Deathwing |
I would count Soul Leach and Nether Protection as mostly filler, situationally usefull. Most of the time, Soul Leach is going to be overheal unless your healers are really slow.
Since 2.4 will make fire better than shadow for personal dps, I see a hybrid spec that takes Emberstorm and Improved Immolate(and Conflagrate for shits and giggles, though good for solo farming and burst fights) much better than pure shadow build that takes cataclysm, soul leach, and nether protection. Where a hybrid spec will be useful is on 10 and 5 mans. Quite a good chance you'll be grouped with no other shadow users, and most likely a mage, hopefully a fire one. In that case, it is much better to use Immolate and Incinerate over SB spam. Even if you get a frost mage, it is more beneficial to put up CoE for both of you because the fire rotation is just about even with sb spam when there are no extraneous fire or shadow buffs(CoE/CoS from yourself was included when I ran the specs in the spreadsheet). | ||||||||||||
| #1987 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | taybul |
Soul Leech is definitely useful when there's raid-wide (RoS) or AoE damage (Council) going around. It helps your healers more than you know when you can be somewhat self-sufficient via the passive healing. I find it particularly useful on fights with temporary heal buffs (again RoS, Bloodboil).
Nether prot is also a nice utility if you don't have to tank. I never appreciated this talent more than the time I got Barraged on Illidan and someone said that it was on a Pally. | ||||||||||||
| #1988 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Deathwing |
I don't know, I've never found Soul Leech useful. The overheal on my fights(T4 and T5) are almost always over 70%. I also looked at WWS reports for Council, couldn't find a Shadowlock that had overheal percentage less than 70% on Soul Leech.
The other problem with both of these talents is that they are low chance. No ones going to change the way they play around Nether Protection or Soul Leech, so their impact will be very small. | ||||||||||||
| #1989 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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70% overheal means 30% effective. That's still "free" healing that potentially saves healer mana, your life or DPS time you might have needed to waste on drain-life. There are plenty of fights with raid damage where you can use a heal but aren't at the top of the healers' list because others are more damaged. I'm glad to have an extra source of HP on any fight where tapping might push be below a safe HP level. | ||||||||||||
| #1990 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | taybul |
I think I'd be more concerned if that overheal% was much lower as it would suggest that your healers aren't topping you off much. Regardless, even if the proc rate is fairly low, it's still greater than 0.
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| #1991 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Nicarras |
Don't know, even with the Emberstorm change, in 25 man raids I cannot see how a shadow/fire mix destro build will out damage a shadow dest build. (outside of some odd group setup)
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| #1992 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Deathwing |
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Also, I would bet that it's not even 1.2%. Since the health benefit comes in somewhat large, unpredictable chunks, it pushes the incoming heals from your healer even farther into their overheal territory. Very rare is the situation where healer is able to make a clear decision fast enough that you don't need a heal now because of a Soul Leech proc. EDIT: Nicarras: Didn't say it would. A pure fire build definitely will. My case for a hybrid build(which is basically dumping soul leech, nether protection, and cataclysm for improved immolate, emberstorm, and conflagrate) is to make a much more versatile destro build while lowering your dps by less than 1%. In situations where there aren't any other shadow users or the only other caster is a fire mage(common in 10 and 5 mans), a hybrid build will definitely do more damage than shadow. Last edited by Deathwing : 03/21/08 at 2:46 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #1993 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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We'll have to see how it all pans out but so far pure fire still wont out do pure shadow because of ISB. "IF" you dont calculate that into the equation then fire pulls ahead but so slight that its worth it in the long run. Fire needs to have an ISB equivalent in order to really make it on par with pure shadow. | ||||||||||||
| #1994 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Deathwing |
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Have you played around with Leullier's spreadsheet? He's got the 2.4 changes in there, fire does more personal dps than shadow by a fair margin, 7% to 10%. Of course that doesn't take into account ISB from OTHER warlocks, which is why I only advocate using the fire rotation when there are no other shadow users in the raid. Otherwise, ISB is indeed much more beneficial. | ||||||||||||
| #1995 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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Maybe you're confused about what I'm saying. I'm not claiming it's the best talent, just that it has a positive return on your talent points while emberstorm doesn't in t6 raiding (where there will always be at least one SP). For me, I'll choose the free hp5, chance at immunity to raid damage and fewer life taps (which means safer raiding). | ||||||||||||
| #1996 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
The ISB uptime increase you cause greatly depends on the current number of shadow priests and destruction warlocks in the raid, so you have to check individually for every raid setup to really tell if fire is worth switching to. Not to mention the difference between fire and shadow's DPS also depends on the actual ISB uptime, so the less shadow priests your raid has the better shadow destruction is as ISB uptime will be higher, but then again your ISB contribution will be a little lower.
Bottom line is that fire VS shadow has a lot more to it than just "shadow has ISB". I suggest checking which spec adds more total raid DPS for your normal raid setup to know for sure what's worth speccing into. For example with the raid setup I used on the spreadsheet with 2 dest 1 aff and 3 sp, switching to fire drops raid ISB by ~12% so 7% worth of personal DPS (delta ISB uptime multiplied by rest of raid's shadow dps divided by personal dps). That means if I'd gain 7% DPS by speccing fire it would be break even, less would be a DPS loss and more would be a DPS gain. This setup has 45.5% ISB uptime by the way. Just an example to show how much your raid setup can matter - if I would've set the shadow priests to do more DPS then it would be quite higher than 7%. | ||||||||||||
| #1997 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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1. In place of shadowburn as a mob is about to die. 2. On the move in a situation where I have full mana or don't want to lifetap. My situation is probably rather rare. I have just about every offpiece in BT Hyjal that I want, and some that I don't really need, and I have only 2t6. But without 4t6, fire is comparatively a stronger build. | ||||||||||||
| #1998 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | menx |
Spec Reco?
My lock has been an arena toon for some time now. I've decided to bring him into raids, and as such my gear is mostly arena gear with bits and pieces from kara, gruuls, and za. I've pretty much socketed my way really close to the hit cap.
Given my current gear/stats, I'd like some recommendations as to what spec I should be focused on? I believe my crit is too low for destro, which is the spec i'd like to attain. thoughts? comments? 1035 shadow damage 196 hit rating 13.66 crit % I was thinking bout something like this? Talent Calculator - 31/9/21 | ||||||||||||
| #1999 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Suggestive |
That spec sucks. Use the spreadsheet, and read the first post of the thread.
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| #2000 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Cohren |
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As for the fire vs. shadow debate with ISB unchanged the numbers are way to close for a switch to fire as whats been said before, there is still more benefit to staying shadow. | ||||||||||||
| #2001 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Hozed |
need some advice.
ive looked around and figured this is the best place to post this...
basically when it comes to spell haste, i have no clue whats going on. recently i picked up footpads of madness and the loop of cursed bones out of ZA during our bear runs. ive done all the math and figured out that i will loose 43 dmg, and .10 crit to gain 52 haste, about 2.42 sb cast time. with the haste gear on it would put my dmg at 1310, and crit at 19.16%. is it worth it? ive heard the term 1 haste = 1.2 dmg if thats true then id say its def worth it. and also, i have quag's eye, and the lock trink form tk. a passive 37 dmg and 48 dmg. im assuming the proc off quag's eye (320 haste, 20.29% for 6 secs) out weighs the +11 dmg i get from the lock trink? im not sure what the internal CD is on the eye but im guessing it over 1 min. thanks for the help, Cursd | ||||||||||||
| #2002 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Vazu |
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With those stats, figure out between your Warlocks who has what for Healthstone talents in the guild, and spec something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Now you have a debuff role with Malediction and this build has two points leftover for Imp. Drain Life or Healthstone ranks. It's a good start at least. Imp. Howl of Terror isn't "necessary", nor is Fel Concentration really but they're both good pickups for all-around play, without hurting your raid viability. Nightfall is crap for raiding. You can slowly get rid of points in Suppression as your hit gear quality increases, but it's a good filler talent for starter gear. | ||||||||||||
| #2003 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
There isn't really any reason to take fel concentration, at least not over nightfall and shadow embrace. Same goes for instant howl. This is the PvE thread not PvP shadow embrace is probably by far the #1 reason to bring an affliction warlock to a raid, with imp coming somewhat behind and malediction being just a sidekick, as while increasing other people's DPS you're reducing your own by more or less (depending on gear level and number/classes of shadow users) the same amount you just increased theirs.
As for healthstone, you have better places to spend that talent point, let the destruction warlocks syncronize their healthstones as they have no better place to put those points - 1 of them should have 2/2 and the other 1/2 with you (the affliction warlock) spending that point either in intensity, improved imp or curse of exhaustion. If you put that point there you just lost a point in one of those talents while the destruction warlock that now needs to have 0/2 improved healthstone has nothing to do with that point, so that would be a waste. | ||||||||||||
| #2004 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | hypetech |
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Thottbot World of Warcraft: Spell Haste Trinket | ||||||||||||
| #2005 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | taybul |
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As for whether they're worth it, eh...seems like you're running MH/BT so if you go by the 1 haste = 1.2 dmg, then there are better loots for those slots than these ZA items. (spellthread neck piece comes to mind if you're not hit capped). edit: For my own edification I tried to prove the 1 haste = 1.2 dmg, here's what I did: Given: - 600 second fight (10 minutes) - You can just bolt the entire time - 0/21/40 - Your shadowbolt hits on average for 2000 - 1% haste (15.77 pts) - damage/crit are constant, and you don't miss or crit W/o haste: 600 / 2.5 = 240 bolts * 2000 = 480,000 damage W/ haste: 600 / (2.5/(1+0.01)) = 242.4 bolts * 2000 = 484,800 damage --- Taking the haste total damage, the equivalent damage per bolt without haste is (484,800 / 240) 2020, or +20 damage/bolt. 20 / 1.057 (SnF) = +18.92 equivalent damage 18.92 dmg / 15.77 haste = 1.1998 damage/haste, or 1.2 damage = 1 haste ------ Don't forget though that haste only really shines in much longer fights, and also assuming you can stand there casting for long periods of time. If you're just killing trash that shouldn't take more than a minute of combat, someone with, say 2% haste will throw just as many bolts as someone without haste, so start stacking! Last edited by taybul : 03/24/08 at 11:08 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2006 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
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There really isn't much to get if you are deep 30+ afflicition anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #2007 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Madlax |
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600/2.475 = 242.42 *2000 /240 -2000 = 20.20 /1.057 and /15.7 = 1.21 This is a question of viewpoint ye, cause it comes down to the duration of the fight. I just wrote the following, would be glad if someone can cross-read it for me and then just stick it onto the first page. Sends a shadowy bolt at the enemy, causing 541 to 603 Shadow damage. I assumed a 21/40 specc for this scenario and i rounded the SB coefficient down to 100% from 105.71. Warlock with, an imaginary 100% hit and 30% crit. A little explaining: Without gear and mob debuffs the very average Shadow Bolt would hit for (603+541)/2 = 572 damage. Lets add 428 spelldam to that - leaving every Shadow Bolt at exactly 1000 damage. In raw theory over 100 casts we would now get 70x1000 + 30x2000 damage = 130.000 damage. Stats increase: 1% crit - 22.1 rating 69*1000 + 31*2000 131.000 damage ~0.77% DPS increase 1% haste - 15.7 rating Would give us 101 bolts, which on average would have 1300 damage. 131.300 damage 1% DPS increase How much damage would give us 1% DPS increase? 131.300/(70+30x2) = 1010 1010 - 1000 = 10 10 damage would give us 1% DPS increase Lets try that again at 1428 spelldam - where we would have 260.000 1% crit - 22.1 rating 69*2000 + 31*4000 262.000 damage ~0.77% DPS increase 1% haste - 15.7 rating Would give us 101 bolts, which on average would have 1300 damage. 262.600 damage 1% DPS increase How much damage would give us 1% DPS increase? 262.600/(70+30x2) = 2020 2020 - 2000 = 20 20 damage would give us 1% DPS increase Now, as this maths indicates - Crit and Haste always give you a linear DPS increase per point, at each gear level. Raw damage on the other hand gets more expensive the higher your Shadow Bolt damage gets. Whats the downside of Haste? With a 2.5(2.475) seconds cast time Shadow Bolt you would need a roughly 4 minute fight to get that 1% extra damage. As your haste goes higher, this value goes lower. If, for example you have 20% haste already, then it would take you 200 seconds of constant casting to do 100 Shadow Bolts. 1% haste will still give you another Shadow Bolt in that time span. Lets do this with raid stats: 30% crit. 1728 spelldam. CoS - 10%. Misery - 5%. Shadow Weaving - 10%. Saccrificed Succubus - 15%. 4part T6 - 6%. 2300 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 1.06 = 3562 Default Damage. How much damage would give us 1% DPS increase? 467.690/(70+30x2) = 3597 3597 - 3562 = 35 35/1.1/1.05/1.1/1.15/1.06 = 22.6 damage It would require 22.6 damage for 1% DPS increase. Conclusion: Haste will grant you the best Statpoint : DPS increase, in fight which are as long as your Shadow Bolts cast time times 100.(That would be 4 minutes to begin with). 15.7 haste rating will always, with above point, grant you 1% DPS increase. | ||||||||||||
| #2008 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | taybul |
Yeah I rounded to count only "whole" shadow bolts and not partial ones (0.42), though I do see what you mean.
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| #2009 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Liminality |
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This is so wrong.... it has a 45 sec internal cooldown. There is a thread in these forums somewhere about what trinkets have hidden cooldowns and what don't. Everyone who has a Quag's eye will tell you it has an internal cooldown. | ||||||||||||
| #2010 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
If argue getting a talent that provides less dps becuase you need it for survivability might as well go spec felguard or something, you'll have more survivability and more DPS than a half-assed affliction spec. In other words, if you're already going affliction you'd better also provide shadow embrace and do as much dps as you actually can do with that spec, otherwise you might as well spec destruction (unless your gear level is very low). On a side note, nobody tells the destruction warlocks to spec affliction for teron gorefiend or bloodboil so they have fel concentration - they survive fine without gimping their dps to get it, and so will you. If you already have a load of hit rating on your gear without even trying to make suppression a waste then you'd have a point as you still need 15 points in the first 3 affliction tiers to reach the higher ones, but none of the 4th-and-above-tier talents (that you're supposed to take) in affliction are negotiable.
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| #2011 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Suggestive |
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| #2012 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kimmee |
Sacrificing a Felhunter
I searched the thread and didn't see anything about it nor have I ever seen it mentioned before anywhere, so I figured I'd bring it up.
Have any of you ever experimented with sacrificing a Felhunter instead of a Succubus for raiding in a 0/21/40 spec? I had never even considered it before but a friend of mine really likes to do this on trash, and also on Kaz'rogal to combat the mana drain. I have always used it for farming, but tried it out in ZA for the first time recently and found that it virtually eliminates the need to Life Tap ever. Obviously in boss fights where you are moving around frequently and you can just Life Tap on the move, there is no point. But in a fight like Gorefiend, Naj'entus, or Anetheron where you are standing still the whole time and taking AoE burst damage which makes Life Tap potentially dangerous, it almost seems like the DPS gain from a Felhunter would be greater than the 15% from a Succubus (particularly if you aren't lucky enough to have a shadow priest or shaman in your group). I was just curious if anyone else here has ever sacrificed a Felhunter while raiding and what they think about it. | ||||||||||||
| #2013 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | taybul |
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I've tried sac'ing the felhunter for kaz, but his mana drain is faster than the mana regen so I'd end up tapping anyway just so I don't blow up. | ||||||||||||
| #2014 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Savetheday |
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Mother Sharaz: I absolutely Hate lifetapping on this fight. Fatal Attraction and different beams can lead to a huge burst, life tapping in my experience can lead to random deaths. Kazrogal: I find I usually only need to tap 1-2 times with felhunter whereas without one im tapping alot more then shadowbolting. I've also been trying it out on Council. There's alot of random damage which can lead to a death and also it's a very long fight, so involves more and more lifetaps. According to my WWS parses the DPS output seemed to be roughly the same, So I'm not sure. | ||||||||||||
| #2015 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Vazu |
I can't think of a single fight in MH/BT where a destro Warlock should sac a Felhunter. There's no such thing as an encounter with no room to Lifetap. Obviously you need to be more careful at times, but you're losing out on a tremendous amount of DPS potential over a very average amount of mana regen. This is a situation where I can honestly say your healers are probably doing a poor job managing raid healing. Especially if you're so afraid of dying that you sac a pet for mana regen as opposed to using Lifetap and getting a HOT. Unless you pull aggro, or you're already very low on HP from an Envenom or some AE affect, nothing should be 1-shotting you. Never give up saccing a a Succubus.
Also, in response to the person above who wrote that you should wait to Lifetap until you're almost OOM. That's a horrible idea. Lifetap when you need to move, or the encounter has downtime. Use Lifetap as a way for your tank to build some threat so you aren't Soulshattering so early. I'll DPS to 110% threat frequently, and LT 2-3 times. That's usually enough time to drop me back below 100%. You wanna look for opportunities where you shouldn't be DPSing to Lifetap. The only time you should wait to Lifetap until you're basically OOM is on straight up burn fights like Teron Gorefiend or Rage Winterchill. Even then, on Rage you can Lifetap when (if) he throws his AE on top of you. Move, LT until you're out of it, resume DPS. Etc etc. Last edited by Vazu : 03/24/08 at 4:57 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2016 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kalle |
1% haste actually requires 10*82/52 ~= 15.77 haste rating (according to WoWWiki).
Unfortunetly that is not the way haste reduces your cast time. The hasted cast time is 2.5 / (1+haste) for SB. This does not cause a huge change to your ratio, I get +20 equivalent damage, too (before SnF, without rounding). But it is the cause of the ratio getting worse the more haste rating you stack. Using 10% haste as base, I get +18.18 equivalent damage. At 20% haste it's +16.67 dmg. If you look at the percental increase in damage, crit also gets worse the more crit you have. Just as hit gets worse the more hit you have and damage the more damage you have. | ||||||||||||
| #2017 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
Knowing when to lifetap is what separates a good warlock from a great warlock. Obviously the method you want to use differs from fight to fight. You just have to think about it logically. The more experience you have at the fights the better decisions you'll make.
Also I can understand saccing a FH on Sharraz. It would be less DPS, but if you find yourself dying a lot then it would definately increase your survivability. Last edited by rochan : 03/24/08 at 10:21 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2018 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Cronjob |
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Conflag is not part of the normal spell rotation for a Destro raiding lock. Spamming bolts > Immo + Conflag | ||||||||||||
| #2019 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Bandoer |
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What you do want somewhat is a balance of stats. There are inflection points where the best Next Stat for dps changes depending on your gear level. | ||||||||||||
| #2020 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | taybul |
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| #2021 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Spoonman |
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| #2022 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Climaxe |
basic stats.
Hello,
I have a question that may or may not be easy to answer because most dps spreadsheets are based on only one or 2 stats... not all of them. However, my question is with 23% crit..1200 damage and max hit as a destro lock, would it be worth it to sacrifice 2 % crit for 50 haste. Basically... i recently picked up 2 haste items from ZA.. the cape and the boots. If i replace both of these items with my current gear, (boots of blasting/morose neck.. i know, had some bad luck with loot) will the haste increase my overall dps, even though im losing crit. I am personally not too familiar with how to make a spreadsheet to test this... so i thought i would ask here. What is the base crit you want to reach befor haste will outscale crit? This probably seems somewhat vague and im sure alot of variables dictate the outcome... but any info on the topic is appreciated. Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #2023 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Arnath |
Have you looked at the warlock spreadsheet? It will let you plug stuff like this in and get a quantitative answer.
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| #2024 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Kimmee |
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| #2025 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | rochan |
No need to do that. The most recent spreadsheet by Leulier will model this. It is a huge dps drop. In fact, even if saccing a felhunter gave you infinite mana, saccing a succubus would still give more dps.
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| #2026 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | corsair |
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350 mp5s from felhunter sac is 1750 mana generated. And you have 10 shadow bolt casts, which cost 4200 mana, so a net cost of 2550 mana and 15% of your dmg. 0 mp5s from pet sac is 0 mana generated. And you have 9 shadow bolt casts, which cost 3780 mana and a life tap , which generates ~2k mana (really 1.5 life taps so 3k mana but it's unneccessary to be that precise in this example). So a net loss of 1780 mana. This cost you 10% of your other damage (only 9 of 10 SB casts), but you gained 15% from the succy sac. So it's a net gain in dps, and you lose less mana. You can generalize this to be more analysis friendly, but I learn best with examples, so hopefully this one is clear enough that you can understand why saccing a succubus is always better if your healers can support you. If you trace down the spreadsheet formulas, it also shows the math for why succy is better. Personally, I like the felhunter on Kaz, but he's the only one, and I'm sure that I'm wrong to "feel" this way. I just don't like chain life tapping when there are still people that explode. Last edited by corsair : 03/24/08 at 7:15 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2027 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
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Regarding fel concentration, I was replying to specs that were linked that included it over the defining talent of shadow embrace as well as other talents that actually increase DPS like nightfall. Of course if it comes as your "first 15 affliction" talent there's no problem... For example if your gear happens to have +14% hit on it already something like Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft would be great. However it is not worth intentionally gearing for hit so you can spec out of suppression. As affliction your dps shouldn't be aggro pulling enough to warrant more hit on soulshatter at the cost of DPS, and 1 hit rating is slightly inferior to 1 spell damage for affliction, not to mention 5 hit is even more inferior to 6 spell damage. I still dont' see how you can have 5/5 and still get amp curse which is probably going to be more useful more often for CoD on an off-dot target, not to mention you're losing soul siphon - while it doesn't stop interrupts it greatly increases the amount of drains and is actually useful on the fights where you would maybe need it and actually not take any pushback (say, a bad kaz'rogal with oom healers and everyone blowing up buying that bit of extra time to finish him off). With 14% hit on gear I'd probably still take Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. haste diminishing returns While haste is quite close to a linear stat like all other stats and therefore its relative value diminishes the more you have of it, just like any other stat does, the fact it doesn't increase your efficiency does have a cost. Look at the relative value of haste compared to other stats on lieuler's with 350 mp5 and 0 mp5 and see that it goes down by a very small amount when you have 350 mp5. Also if you look at the actual (#) DPS increase from adding a point of haste rating when you have a little compared to when you have a lot you will notice the actual dps gain is a tiny bit smaller with higher base haste. This will not be true for spell damage or crit. This effect is extremely small though when you actually look at the numbers - so while haste does have a little extra diminishing returns over what every stat has, it has an extremely small effect. | ||||||||||||
| #2028 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Krazen |
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I know the jury is still out on this, but I'm personally convinced that fire will be a superior dps spec in 2.4. During movement, there are 3-4 options: 1. Drums 2. Lifetap 3. Conflag 4. Do nothing Sometime 1 and 2 are not possible or desirable. Conflag should be a net dps gain in this (situational) situation. Keep in mind almost every boss fight requires some kind of movement. Or it resets aggro and you want to get a last bit of damage in. Either way, 2.4 fire Destro has a free point; you might as well take it. Last edited by Krazen : 03/25/08 at 12:17 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2029 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | • frmorrison |
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From my personal testing of the spreadsheet, Fire was higher personal dps, however imp SB was up less so there would be less raid dps. | ||||||||||||
| #2030 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | galzohar |
You also need to move close to the end of immo or else you will easily get rid of more immo dps than you gained by conflagging, or at least close enough for it to not be worth the mana. Conflag is so rarely useful that once immolate is break-even on DPS (taking ISB into account) there's absolutely no point and there's very very little point to get it regardless. Heck 1/5 cataclysm will provide more DPS on some cases, maybe even enough to outweight conflag's talent point even for the immolate user. Not to mention if you're at the/a point where immolate isn't worth casting it makes conflag even more of a waste. Not to mention speccing into fire talents means you have exactly 1 floating point in destruction (while if you don't take fire talents you can take pretty much whatever you see fit in destruction while keeping your max dps - be it tanking talents, nether protection, 2/3 soul leech etc).
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| #2031 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Seir |
Hi, my guilds been on Mother for about 2 weeks now and we've been trying out switching from SB to Incinerate during the ice and shadow aura's; however, because we've been on her only a short time I don't feel i have enough data to determine if its more effective then just spamming shadowbolts at her, so I was wondering if any other locks with more experience on mother has determined this yet?
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| #2032 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 Edited onPatch 2.3.3 | Morwen |
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S = total current raidwide shadow dps U = current ISB uptime P = your personal dps U' = ISB uptime after you switch to fire P' = your personal dps after switching to fire In order for fire to be worthwhile, it must be the case that P' > S - (S-P)(1+0.2U')/(1+0.2U) Or to put it in terms of 'how much does fire need to beat shadow by?' P' - P > (S-P)(1 - (1+0.2U')/(1+0.2U)) A couple toy examples would be: If there's currently 5000 shadow dps excluding you, U = 60%, and U' = 50%, then fire needs to beat shadow by 89 dps to be worth switching. If there's currently 8000 shadow dps excluding you, U = 70%, and U' = 66%, then fire needs to beat shadow by 56 dps to be worth switching. Last edited by Morwen : 03/24/08 at 8:23 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2033 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Trickykid |
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| #2034 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Krazen |
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| #2035 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.3.3 | Seir |
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It just seems in theory it would get you greater damage but I'm tending to lose damage to the switching between the two do to mostly human error and do to the randomness of the auras its hard to tell. I figure if no one has already figured it out for sure then I'll just keep track of my damage on shahraz, and over time draw a conclusion off of the relative frequency data. | ||||||||||||
| #2036 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | weijonny |
2.4 spell haste buff
since the 2.4 spell haste big buff, is it a good idea to go full spell haste SB?
then it would be point less to cast immolate, just like casting any other dots? just wondering, if the haste can be buffed to 2sec or less per SB, then dps would be around the SB dmg you are doing. gears depended. | ||||||||||||
| #2037 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Cronjob |
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Now if what you are saying is that in 2.4 switching to fire you will be using Immolate + conflag + Incinerate then thats an interesting spell rotation although I'm not sure I'm completely sold on fire spec yet.. Soulfrost ftl | ||||||||||||
| #2038 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Cohren |
There was no ISB change so I don't know why Fire vs. Shadow is still being discussed. Unless your guild brings like 5+ Warlocks, they(You) all should be shadow spec'd to help the raid. Raiding has never been about the individual but rather the synergy between the different classes. There are some steep DPS fights in Sunwell and your raid is going to have to squeeze out every last drop of damage so unless the gain in DPS of a Fire lock out gain's the loss of DPS from lost ISB uptime I see no reason to spec fire for progression.
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| #2039 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | ♦ Eph |
Wouldn't it be difficult to keep Immolate up in an Incinerate rotation while gaining haste gear? Or would it be best to Conflag or Life Tap perhaps at the very end of the Immolate? It seems like haste's value would be more difficult to determine with this uneven rotation. Or is everyone assuming another raid member's Immolate will be up and there would be no downtime?
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| #2040 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Liminality |
um
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that is completely not true... The italicised part is incredibly false... All things kept constant, the move from 0-1% is not as big of a dps increase as 50-51%. In fact, it increases exponentially. When you move from 98% to 99%, the DPS increase is astronomical compared to even the 50-51%. I am not a math major or anything, so I wouldn't know exactly how to prove it. The increase in the number of attacks in a given time frame increases exponentially as downtime is reduced. Does that make sense? I did play FFXI for a long time where there is a combo for Dark Knight that involves stacking haste that follows the same principle, so I am sure its right. This is also assuming no global cooldowns and whatnot to fuck everything up At least that's how I believe haste works, correct me if I am wrong... As for Crit. I think the increase in DPS is linear. From 1% to 2%, the increase is static. From 98% to 99% the incrase is the same. However, more crit is more ISB uptime, which is a hidden factor that will incrase DPS (raid and individual). So I guess, ISB uptime would actually skew crit from a linear incrase in DPS to a line that curves upwards like haste, but not nearly as efficient at higher levels. overly wordy, i know, i apologize Last edited by Liminality : 03/25/08 at 12:56 PM. Reason: forgot something | ||||||||||||
| #2041 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Krazen |
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I posted some ideas on that a few pages back: [Warlock] PVE Raiding Compendium But the cycle is ultimately quite simple: 1. If Immolate isn't up, cast it. 2. If Immolate has time > (Your incin cast time), cast incinerate. 3. If Immolate has time < (Your immo cast time), cast immolate. 4. If Immolate has time between 2 and 3 (usually between 1.4 and 2.1 seconds or so for the average t6 player), lifetap, pushing you into 3. If you don't want/need to lifetap, just cast an unbuffed incinerate. 5. If you move, Lifetap (this is the same as Shadow, really). If you don't want/need to Lifetap, Conflag, and start at 1. | ||||||||||||
| #2042 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Trickykid |
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The same happens for each of the stats. As one increases, the relative value added by the other stats increases. None of them have exponential "take offs" like you say. | ||||||||||||
| #2043 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | NanoHaxial |
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| #2044 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Krazen |
I believe it does, but that shouldn't change a whole lot, since you want to be casting Immolate for its superior DPCT. If you get a SPriest, you might not have to Lifetap, but most of us aren't that lucky and have to LT at some point anyway.
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| #2045 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Villeraz |
Given enough other warlocks casting immolate, it should always be up, and will probably not need to be refreshed before it expires. There may be a possibility of small gaps where it isn't up, but this probability decreases rapidly to negligible past the 2nd warlock.
Someone could try to model "immolate uptime" . A simple model would be to work with maximum overall % downtimes, which would correspond to the cast of an incinerate (factoring in haste) minus the cast time of an immolate (factoring in haste), divided by the duration of immolate (which may change with Tier 4 bonus) and the downtime calculated.. This would represent the worst-case scenario of casting an incinerate at the last possible moment before you would have the opportunity to cast a fresh immolate. In a simple case with no haste (other than emberstorm), this is (2.25-1.5)/(15+2.25-1.5), which is ~4.76%. With two warlocks, the chance of both warlocks being in "downtime" is then ~0.23%. You could increase the complexity of the model by factoring in the fact that incinerate is not being chain-cast, so it will not overlap entirely with the overall % downtime, although I think my model shows that with even two warlocks, the uptime on immolate is fairly good. However, it does not factor in affliction warlocks (who place immolate lower in priority than their other dots), the few occasions where a curse takes priority over immolate, and obviously, shadow destruction locks who do not cast immolate. Also, it assumes that the warlock will be able to watch timers precisely enough to know when their immolate can be renewed without overlap. | ||||||||||||
| #2046 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Nicarras |
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Even with Immo up, Incin still hits for less than my SBs do in my shadow dest spec even when shes in Shadow phase. Silly, yes...but I just spam SBs the entire fight. I might LT more during the SR phase though. It's a Melee fight for the most part...you are just there to provide support DPS and not kill them. | ||||||||||||
| #2047 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | weijonny |
spam sb
after 2.4 the haste buff would denfinatley uneven, aff lock might have a hard time to change their dots route.
if i can get all haste gears from the game, including ZA, 2.4, and sunwell etc.. then all i would do is spam SB, immolate+instant corruption from t5 bonus, then if free time, incernate. phew phew phew phew! SB dps 2000+ CANT WAIT!!! 12:30 grrrrr | ||||||||||||
| #2048 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Nicarras |
At my gear level, adding Immolate to my rotation (meaning between SBs when its down) adds a whopping 2dps in the Warlock spreadsheet. And after I get my gear from Sunwell that I want (basically finish out my BC gear) I actually lose about 60 dps casting Immo.
I don't even know why we keep talking about if Immo is worth it. It is really simple. If Aff Then Cast Immolate Else if Dest Then Dont Cast Immolate Last edited by Nicarras : 03/25/08 at 3:33 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2049 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Trickykid |
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| #2050 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Goedel |
raid dps with imp
Discussion about 0/21/40 raid specs in 2.4 built for sacrificing an imp and using fire damage got me to thinking about builds designed to keep the imp around. However, it has been difficult to analyze this possibility quantitatively.
Please note that I have followed the discussion here closely, and I am well aware of the phenomenon of people urging a less effective approach that has been clearly discredited, on the basis of anecdotal evidence or inappropriate comparisons (such as out-performing guildmates with less skill or other poor specs or gearing). There is a little discussion of this possibility months ago in another thread but no solid quantitative answers that I have yet found. Oddly, the initial post of this thread mentions several unusual talent specs that I doubt see much use (Destruction with Siphon Life?), but there is no reference under either the Demonology or Destruction sections to a build for Shadowbolt or Incinerate spam alongside an imp casting Firebolt, along the lines of either this 0/21/40 or this 0/39/22 (or this variant on the latter). These certainly appear more promising than some of the builds that have been discussed. Unfortunately, finding accurate data for modeling them is difficult. What's needed:
Possible solution: Firebolt damage = (<base Firebolt damage as indicated in tooltip> + <fixed coefficient> * <warlock's bonus damage>) * (1 + 0.1 * <points in Improved Imp>) * (1 + 0.04 * <points in Unholy Power>) * (1 + 0.05 * <points in Soul Link>) * (1 + <imp's crit rate, which is the same as master's crit rate>) * <hit rate>. Nuking alongside the imp will be higher dps than sacrificing it as long as the imp's dps is higher than 15% of the warlock's. Actually, in the 0/39/22-style builds, it only needs to exceed 10% of the warlock's pre-Soul Link damage (though that damage may be lower than in the 0/21/40-style build). Here's one sample calculation; I hope people don't get tripped up in "but my numbers are such-and-such, so this whole conversation doesn't apply!"; you can perform the same calculation. If a warlock does, say, 1600 dps on a 30% crit rate and 1200 bonus damage, the imp would need to hit 360 damage per 1.5-sec Firebolt (after talents, including both crits and non) to exceed the dps gain from sacrificing it. Without soul link, that's 213 (base damage + C * bonus damage), which is 97 bonus damage, or a 0.08 coefficient. So, before I attempt rigorous testing with various gear and talent combinations, can somebody point to a definitive source that has already determined the missing variables, which I have not found here or on the ever-spotty wowwiki? Additional considerations:
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| #2051 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Deathwing |
It is REALLY easy to kill the imp through soul link.
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| #2052 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | rochan |
It really doesn't matter, the Imp will die on pretty much every BT/MH fight & trash pull.
Not to mention its damage hardly scales at all. In full Sunwell gear when you are doing 3000 DPS, your imp will still be doing 150. The spreadsheet models it effectively enough, and common sense will dictate that it's not worth using. | ||||||||||||
| #2053 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Goedel |
Rochan, do you have any idea what "hardly scales at all" means? Numbers are helpful (or symbolic math). If you cannot provide the spell coefficients, what is your justification for asserting it is not worth using? I was under the impression this was a board where quantitative reasoning was preferred over unsupported "common sense". Moreover, common sense tends to lag well behind precise understanding (if it ever matches at all). The game changes fairly often. If Blizzard released a patch with the note "spell damage coefficient for Imp's Firebolt increased by 10%", would you know how to even begin evaluating that? Maybe you would, but you have said nothing to indicate it. Personally, I'd rather know how to compute the value of different possibilities at any time than memorize (and relearn whenever applicable) a list of conclusions somebody else has derived without being able to check that derivation.
And, again, I am aware of the imp's fragility. Those who do have the numbers to fill in, consider it purely an academic exercise, if nothing else, and indulge my curiosity for figuring out exactly what its dps would be if that were not a concern. Last edited by Goedel : 03/25/08 at 4:40 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2054 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Trickykid |
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| #2055 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Morwen |
The numbers in the Leulier spreadsheet are:
- Pets get 15% of your +dmg - Firebolts get 45% of the pet's spell damage coefficient - Miss rate is fixed, pets do not get +hit - Crit rate is 5% before talents, pets do not get your +crit And it results, in the best case, in Sacrifice beating the imp by a factor of 3 to 1. | ||||||||||||
| #2056 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
Raiding with imp
Even if your crazy idea could work, you're giving up shadow embrace, which is quite more important than having an imp out. The only viable spec that has shadow embrace is 43/0/17 +1 (or with extreme gear 38/0/21 +2) and both keep an imp out anyway. While it's easier to see the benefit of extra HP on the tank, the fact is -5% of boss' melee damage is that much more important, not to mention you can simply have both. Bottom line is if your DPS is worth gimping to get an imp out, it is most definitely worth gimping to get shadow embrace! So the ansewer to "can an imp-dps demonology spec work?" is "even if it worked it's not worth it as full affliction is better if you want to support your tank and destruction is better for DPS". Not to mention that most likely the dps loss of shadow embrace spec over your spec will provide more survavability per dps lost than your spec provides over a destruction spec, if affliction even loses dps compared to your spec in the firstplace. Haste diminishing returns I said this before and I'll say it again, if you have any mana regen, the more haste you gain the less #DPS you gain, however the effect is extremely slight. Compared to spell damage, which (if ignoring extra mana from lifetaps which will cause tiny *increasing* returns on spell damage) would give a fixed amount of #DPS no matter how much you have, keeping other stats constant. This effect (on both stats) is extremely tiny, though - you can check it yourself on the spreadsheet. fire specs and raid dps support While buffing raid DPS is nice and all, dealing more damage yourself is also more beneficial. You cannot argue warlcoks should be shadow "to support raid DPS" just like you can't argue moonkins "becuase they have good synergy" (and while I won't go into moonkin viability, we all know how many raids acccept moonkins). Due to the fire buff you will have to look at the DPS your raid will lose VS the personal DPS you will gain if you switch to fire, which is, as said many times already, depends on your actual raid composition. conflag with fire spec Not every movement that doesn't include a life tap should have a conflag. Remember it has a mana cost and makes you lose the DPS from immolate ticks. Optimally you would know exactly how much time you have left on moving and assuming conflag is worth the time to reapply immolate you'd conflag 1.5s before stopping to move, but often you don't know how much longer you'll be moving and thus on average you will probably lose more DPS from conflagging than you'd gain. This is very hard to accurately calculate, though, as you can't even determine the chance for you to stop moving within less than 1.5s and how much before that etc. Just keep in mind that mindlessly casting conflag according to the "script" (in post 2041) can definitely cause you to lose dps. | ||||||||||||
| #2057 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | taybul |
Conflag should really be used only if it's the last mob and it's about to die. If it's one mob of many, let that immolate tick off and put a new one on the next mob. If the next mob is sheeped, you're better off lifetapping or applying curses.
Last edited by taybul : 03/26/08 at 3:51 PM. Reason: EJ'd | ||||||||||||
| #2058 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
Obviously if it's a "mob is almost dead issue" and there's another mob, DPS other mob rather than conflag - you'll deal more dps even without taking mana cost into account.
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| #2059 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Seir |
I personally, as a rule of thumb, only conflag on trash if it'll do the same or more damage then the remaining ticks and it won't delay a new incinerate.
I don't think it's ever of use during boss encounters because most times you might be able to gain from conflag it's probably better to just lifetap in the long run. | ||||||||||||
| #2060 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Nas |
Has anyone done the maths of the [Icon of the Silver Crescent] vs [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] for an Affliction Warlock? And does the proc on the trinket consume ISB at all?
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| #2061 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Jaydedspirit |
Spell haste
Doing alot of looking around I haven't been able to find any proof of this but my current raid leader mentioned to me that spell haste now works for our dots, making them tick faster needing a refresh cast sooner. I was really wanting to know if this true considering that if this is true an affliction locks dps would increase quiet a bit if they knew how to properly control there dots and timings.
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| #2062 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Amathal |
I haven't heard anything about that. Spell Haste does affect the global cooldown now, maybe that is what he meant?
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| #2063 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | armitageiii |
Alright. I have read through about 40 pages of this thread to find a clear answer. I've downloaded the spread sheet etc.
My question. With warlocks geared such as this: One (In pvp gear at the time i posted this) In a raid with 2 warlocks and 2 shadow priests. What spec would increase the over all dps in the raid. 0/21/40 Shadowbolt or Incinerate. This is assuming both locks are ISB. And also assuming there is a scorch mage in the raid. On say a fight like brutallus or something. I would really enjoy a mathematical proof or something straight forward. Thanks in advanced! | ||||||||||||
| #2064 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Darkwand3r3r |
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Fire might be more dps for yourself right now, with the new emberstorm, but the raid will loose some dps because of the lack of ISB debuff. I can do some easy maths a bit later today to clarify. And prove my point i hope, or not ofcourse. ----- For the above 2 posters about haste with dots. Haste does not make your dots tick faster. Only the global cooldown is affected for dotting. So it is a small increase in dps perhaps, but nothing major. | ||||||||||||
| #2065 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Anthraxx |
Has anyone already worked out 2.4 best gear setup for a destruction warlock?
Which 4 of the T6 pieces? On the other note: [Quick Lionseye]/[Runed Crimson Spinel]/[Reckless Pyrestone] look just about the same dpswise to me (assuming 1 haste = 1.2 dmg in t6 lvl gear), but what about dimnishing value of haste? | ||||||||||||
| #2066 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | ninielin |
With the massive lack of hit on sunwell armor I don't think you ll need to socket those gems , veiled pyrestone all the way Unless there a quite a few items not known yet.
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| #2067 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Kobal |
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However, I tried out the fire spec for the first time yesterday in Hyjal, and in my subjective impression I did not observe the individual DPS gain that I should have observed according to the spreadsheets. This may be due to unfamiliarity with the spec, or due to the fact that I still have soulfrost on my weapon (I was just experimenting after all ), but I have a gut feeling that for some unknown reason theory and practice differ here. What did other destruction warlocks observe? | ||||||||||||
| #2068 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | dydoe |
about gear and stats
hi, I just need some advise regarding stats, as well as the new patch has added haste on the new items, btw I have some doubts before patch, just to clarify, about improvement on which items should I choose, to keep the same or better stats.
first, I'm 0/21/40 spec., you can also check my stats on the armory, but if you're lazzy I can say I have 203 hit, 1054 spelldamage unbuffed and 21% crit without bane. I'm using lot of pvp stuff, cause I'm not a taylor, and I'm only raiding kara, gruul, magtheridon, 3 bosses from ssc and 1 of TK. I always like to look for my own stuff via badges or heroics, cause sometimes is hard to get a neat loot when you're with +25 members, even when at least 10 are clothies. I always test my stats browsing some sites for maximizing dps, so when I fill the blank with 202 hit so the better stuff appears to be the +crit ones. It seems that I have to improve crit, maintaining hit, isn't it? so, usually specific items are used to have +crit or +hit, but in theory, sometimes is better for example to equip legs with +crit than ones with +hit. Am I wrong? I have noticed the best way to improve crit is to equip stuff with +crit, (at least is better than gemming it with crit gems), but at the same time I have noticed some patterns about items for each bodypart, If i'm not wrong, tier robes has no crit, idem with some other stuff. the question is, if I have to choose between crit or hit, in stuff like robes, do I have to get the +crit one? If the robe has slots too, is not easier to get the one with crit, and gem it with +hit? or is better to choose the one with +hit and gem it with crit? In other hand, regarding haste, do we have to gear ourselves using now hit>haste>damage>crit? I have read crit rating should scale equally with damage, does anyone know a kind of "rule" to follow it? (for example, exagerating; if you have 6000 damage so 10% crit is too low, or if you have 50% crit then 600 damage is too low) to finish, I'm now using 2 t4 pieces, to get the bonus, but is it really good? or should I get tehe robe and take another helm? even being a pvp helm? I'm sorry if i'm bothering someone, but there's a lot of stuff on the web, and I came here cause this web seems to be the better one. (I'm not a native english speaker as well :p) | ||||||||||||
| #2069 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Darkwand3r3r |
@Dydoe.
Yes you have to maintain a high lvl of hit rating at almost any cost. I'm not sure if you should stay capped at 202 or a bit over or lower. Depends on how many side the dice has, does it roll for 1-100 to calculate the percentage, or does it roll 1-10000 and takes every 0.01% chance into the roll? But that doesnt change the fact that hit is extremely important for a 0/21/40 lock, or any spec for that matter. If you use the spreedsheat you can see the value of every next stat and you can decide on what to get from there. It is usualy something like this, if hit capped: Spell dmg +1 Crit bit lower than 1, but this depends on your own stats allot and the raid setup if enabled. Haste rating 1.3 Hit rating is the most important stat up to the cap. On the robe choice, it really doens't matter. Just make sure you're hit is near/on/over the cap. You can't really classify 1 stat better than the others. It's relative, meaning 30 spelldmg is allot more important if you have 500 spell dmg than 30 crit rating. Again, use the spreadsheet to determine how the stats are valued and decide according to that. Also note that even if people say get this and that, you possibly don't have acces to all items, be it on higher raid levels or them just not dropping. The same thing with the dmg vs crit rule. There is non. It depends on your current stats. So to summarise, keep your hit high enough, use the spreadsheet which is located in this topic. And just go with the gear you can actually get or have. I found 0/21/40 not to work that well in early T5 instances, Affliction was still gear then. It became better during late T5 instances. Might consider speccing Affliction aswell. But do what you find most fun ofcourse. At that raiding level not optimizing your spec to your raid enviroment won't really make a ground breaking difference. Hope I could be of any help to you. @Kobal You can only really compare the 2 "specs" with each other either by theory or by testing it for a very lengthy period of time. With a game that almost runs on chances, the rule of large numbers applies, this means the large the amount of result you have from testing the more accurate it is. So all in all if the theory says it does more dps, believe in that. But there might be variables that the spreadsheet does not take into account, though i don't know what, since all the data gathered is based on testing, which again doesn't have to be accurate because it is also based on chances. If 50 warlocks try the new spec the results will varie from really crap to extremely overpowered. From a non mathematical aproach to the 2 specs, the dps should be about equel now. But that's just guessing. | ||||||||||||
| #2070 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | dydoe |
Darkwandered, thank you very much, I always had in mind if I want to be 21/40 then I have to be hit cap. I don't believe the sheet could help me that much, (and due to my language seems to be impossible to fully understand it), btw I feel the best way to improve is to equip the most +hit stuff of each part, cause then I can gem the slots with +damage and crit can comes with some other stuff, even with that ones with +hit and +crit.
In fact, I have got a green trinkete with +26 hit, and thinking in change the enchant of my gloves from 15 hit to 20 damage, (my actual trinkete seems to be nerfed, now that nexxus horn is not that better, so i dont care in replace it, and for pulls I use the one you get with skyward exalted, getting +80 damage between one kill) I'm working on getting the crusader mooncard, but, it will take a lot in a low quantity of players server. I'm using the icon too, and is ok. I have never played affli, in fact I leveled being demo, till FG, and mixed FG-affli, and FG-destru, then tried 0/40/21, this one was great for 5 man in my opinion, even more when you usually have to use your succi and not your FG, and the damage you gain with SL and DK is pretty good. now with destro I feel better. I'll keep an eye on this forum, just to know how is going with the new patch, and to know if haste is that good. again, thank u. | ||||||||||||
| #2071 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Trickykid |
That conclusion doesn't follow. If Fire_DPS > Shadow_DPS + Increased_Raid_DPS(from ISB), then fire wins. Other non-DPS factors like the fact that increasing SP dps further increases the DPS of his group via VT could be considered on Shadow's side as well.
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| #2072 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | clavarnway |
On the spreadsheet for me haste shows as about 1.3-1.4 worth as +damage and crit. However haste doesn't help with ISB...so for a raiding warlock with 2-4 Warlocks and 1-2 spriest per raid, is crit worth as much as haste, or more?
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| #2073 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | rochan |
If you actually looked hard you would see it is in the spreadsheet.
Raid TNS = 1 means it accounts for ISB from your crit/hit/haste. You can set other warlocks/sps in the Raid ISB tab. I see crit worth slightly less than haste (1.4 vs 1.5 compared to 1.1 vs 1.45 without Raid TNS) with 3 locks/2 sp although it will depend how you set up the Raid ISB sheet. Last edited by rochan : 03/27/08 at 1:09 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2074 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | cynics |
I am a raiding Warlock up to illidan, i am spec'd destro and i am a fairly competent player.
There are a few things i want to know: 1. How does +haste and +dmg compare to each other? (meaning is +haste better than +dmg and at what point is one better than the other?) 2. I plan on replacing the gems in my chest with Reckless Pyrestone as i am over the hit cap. 2a. Should i also repalce +crit/+dmg gems with Reckless Pyrestone or even Reckless Noble Topaz aswell?3. i know that i should be going for 4pc T6 but due to DKP this is a ways off for me, should i replace any of the T6 slot items with non-T6 in the meantime (e.g. gloves, pants, chest, shoulders, or Helm)? 4. I hear a lot about fire build and it seems feasible if raid makeup is right but typically we typically have 1 mage in raids, and for the most part they are a wasted spot. i'd assume this would mean fire isn't as viable as Shadow in our mage makeup, is that a correct assumption? Edit: Removed my profile link cause im a noob and didn't know it was built in to my account, Epic FAIL! GG on the infraction! Last edited by cynics : 03/28/08 at 6:58 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2075 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | LockApologist |
@cynics:
1. spreadsheet 2. spreadsheet and generally, if you already have an epic gem, it is not worth replacing, unless you have a glut of pyrestones/want to farm all the badges. the difference between 5 crit and 5 haste is minuscule. 3. I'm not sure what you would replace any of those with that was not T6 (minus getting Vashj robe or shoulders from Gurtogg/Aneth). Outside T6, your first upgrade should be the neck and wand, as both of those are not that great. 4. If you run more spriests than fire mages, it's probably better to stay shadow. But, if you run light on locks/spriest and heavy on mages (like my guild), fire is appealing. | ||||||||||||
| #2076 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Audious |
I'm debating on whether or not I want to craft [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone].
I'm currently using [Icon of the Silver Crescent] & [Quagmirran's Eye] as my main trinkets. I have [The Lightning Capacitor] sitting around collecting dust as well. The other badge trinket's just don't seem to be worth the trade off, though I was considering picking up [Battlemaster's Alacrity]. I'm still hoping I could pick up [Hex Shrunken Head] at some point. This, [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] looks pretty neat as well. Thoughts? Armory Link | ||||||||||||
| #2077 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | cynics |
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The gems in my chest and shoulders are Blue quality so that means it would be better to go from blue hit/dmg to Epic haste/dmg. The next item i will upgrade is neck off RoS or the offhand for Chill, we rarely do TK so that wand is kinda difficult get. Thanks for the info EDIT: i went ahead and tried to get teh chart to work, but when i change to my current gear the values on the DPS tab never change. is there something im doing wrong? (im using excel 2003 and i have enabled macros, i also have allowed circle calculations) EDIT2: My copy was corrupted got it working thanks for the help. Last edited by cynics : 03/28/08 at 7:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2078 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | clavarnway |
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This is assuming Icon is valued at 67 damage. I'm fairly certain the alchemist trinket is also better than Eye, since as far as I know Icon is universally agreed for Warlocks to be better than Eye already. There is also something to be said about trinkets with equip effects instead of use. Less things to worry about, the better. | ||||||||||||
| #2079 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
Keep in mind excel spreadsheets are pretty easy to "destroy" (by overwriting the box that calculates something with a constant number...). Try re-downloading the spreadsheet and if it still has problems go post on the appropriate thread (another) Warlock DPS Spreadsheet
So how do I tell if I should be fire or shadow??? The spreadsheet allows you to do that! If you didn't manage, you weren't trying hard enough. The spreadsheet has a "raid ISB" tab at the bottom. Click on it. There you can enter the number of shadow users, their classes and % SB cast (or MB frequency for SPs - SWD (at least last version I downloaded, may had been changed by now) is assuemd to be used on cooldown). Keep in mind you will probably have 1 warlock affliction in your raid if your guild cares for progress so make sure to get the proper SB cast% for him (which can be easily done by the spreadsheet by modifying your own rotation and seeing the SB cast%). Enter the appropriate DPS (stand and shoot DPS, not WWS/damagemeters/SWS/etc DPS - consult shadowpriest.com or some other simulator for DPS of your shaodow priests). Make sure when entering the DPS of other classes to enter the fully buffed/debuffed DPS but NOT including ISB DPS! (important if you're using lieuler's spreadsheet to get the warlock's DPS (in which case put ISB to custom and 0%) or some shadowpriest simulator that takes ISB into account (again try make it calculate with 0% ISB uptime)). Note that if you enter their DPS after ISB the results won't be skewed *too much* but you'll favor shadow by a little bit more than you should. Go back to the main tab, spec yourself destruction and enter your fully buffed stats to get your own DPS. Choose ISB model to "Raid ISB". Write down your DPS (on paper or in a different cell) and go to the ISB tab. Look at the ISB uptime and multiply it by 1/5 of the total shadow DPS in your raid (not including yourself - as your own ISB DPS is already counted). Add that DPS to the personal DPS you got (no, that's not really how much DPS you bring to the raid, but the ISB DPS that doesn't actually belong to you will get reduced anyway in a second). Spec yourself fire destruction and repeat the process. Still add to your personal DPS the ISB DPS! (or reduce it from the shadow DPS result...). Write down those numbers. Grats! Now you see how much DPS you will gain/lose by swapping to fire and back (by deducting the 1st number you calculated from the 2nd one - negative would be DPS decrease to go fire destro and positive would be an increase for fire destro. You probably want to try it for more than 1 possible raid makeup, especially if your guild's makeups vary and especially if you got close results for fire and shadow. | ||||||||||||
| #2080 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Trickykid |
Err, I disagree. "Use" effects can be stacked on top of DPS phases or other group/raid/proc buffs to magnify their value. The nature of passive effects means you "waste" them on any period of time where you are doing less or no damage.
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| #2081 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | • frmorrison |
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Timbal's proc does not eat imp SB, and its damage is affected by it. | ||||||||||||
| #2082 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
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While if you can't predict when it'll be good to use it can screw you over, it's just as likely to get lucky on you and give you good damage. On average, though, if you have any way to predice the "bad time to use" periods even by the slightest, you'll gain slightly more than its average damage. Saying it's one less thing to worry about means you need some motivation and focus help in your raiding more than you need dps anyway, in which case I wonder how you ever stepped out of the void zones in Arcatraz while getting your karazan key. | ||||||||||||
| #2083 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Pidge | |||||||||||||
| #2084 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Touf | |||||||||||||
| #2085 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | TangoDigital |
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I'm not a pro at maths so I won't claim this is correct but: If we assume a PPM of 7 for the trinket, the additional spelldmg of the proc effect should be (380*7)/60=44.3. This would clock the trinket in at +88 dmg on averange, placing it right beside the Darkmoon Card... for a DoT-lock at least. Can anyone confirm this or am I totally off? ![]()
So yeah... it is that important. Last edited by TangoDigital : 03/28/08 at 6:11 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2086 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Kobal |
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The problem with soulshatter resists can at least be mitigated by having an alternative weapon/ranged set that focusses solely on hitrating, and that you swap in right before the soulshatter. An affliction warlock needs a full 6% hit for his DoTs to be capped (5% if you regularly have a draenei in your group). The suppression talent is incerdibly helpful here, as it has been noted repeatedly before that there are no really essential alternatives where to put these points. | ||||||||||||
| #2087 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | TangoDigital |
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This is all sorta moot anyway since a lot of our gear comes with decent hit if you make the right choices. However, if left with the choice between spelldmg/crit/haste gems versus hit I'll always prefer hit unless I'm >=202. | ||||||||||||
| #2088 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | evilhacker |
Value of Hit
My problem with 202 as a primary stat goal for hit is that I've found very little difference between being hit capped and raiding with 100-150 hit. I generally raid as 0/21/40 with around a 155 rating. We don't have a moonkin and I rarely have access to an elemental shaman, and yet for the most part, I do not miss against raid bosses.
I assume a large part of it is that in a given fight, I don't cast a significant number of spells. I'm no statistician, but I'd figure you'd have to cast a very large number of spells in order to feel a difference between 10% to hit and 15%. In combat, I don't think I'd notice if 1 out of 20 miss unless I got a streak of misses. I look at hit like any other stat - it's important and it adds to DPS. Given a choice between adding 1% to hit, 1% to crit, and 1% additional spell damage, I'd probably pick crit. | ||||||||||||
| #2089 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Cronjob |
Well at first I thought fire was the new hotness and rolling around doing world pvp it kinda is. I tested the last two nights on Brutallus and shadow wins every time. We had mostly mages on the first night and the second night we had a better mix with two shadow priest but no matter what shadow was winning out.
We had three locks two destro one affliction and it didnt matter whether both the destros went fire or if only one, shadow was winning. The spell rotation we each were using was immo then spam incin. Anyone else testing out fire? | ||||||||||||
| #2090 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | rochan |
I heard the spreadsheet tested out fire.
And evilhacker I'm not gonna sugar-coat it: what you wrote there is pretty stupid and I really hope no one takes your advice. You are just shooting yourself in the foot if you dont hit cap while destro. Hit rating is so strong, overpowered even, because you need much less rating for 1% hit than 1% crit, and spells use a 2 roll system, i.e. you have to hit in order to crit. | ||||||||||||
| #2091 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Cronjob |
Yeah Rochan the spreadsheet indicates fire should win out but thats not what we saw lastnight on Brut. We were even a lock short which would boost our DPS even more as shadow because ISB would be up more. But even with just me running shadow while the other destro lock did fire, I would win out.
Was hoping others were testing this out. I even went as far as removing soulfrost in favor of pure +40 spell damage on my weapon. | ||||||||||||
| #2092 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Mearis |
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| #2093 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | • Nurru |
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| #2094 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Necrostar |
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| #2095 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Kobal |
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5/5 Improved Corruption 2/2 Improved Lifetap 2/2 Improved Drain Soul The remaining talents are nice little gimmicks, but in no way necessary for a raiding warlock. People call these "filler". So putting 5 of those 6 points into suppression will not cost you any useful talent. This is personal preference then. Should I ever have to spec affliction myself, I would follow the advice of my spreadsheet and value hitrating about equal to spelldamage. | ||||||||||||
| #2096 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | rochan |
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There are just a lot more things that can go wrong with fire vs pure spamming one button (shadowbolt) playstyle. With practice & perfect play the specs will probably be equal, but why go through all the extra hassle, and you don't even buff the other shadow users. | ||||||||||||
| #2097 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Thebeefe | |||||||||||||
| #2098 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | witchedwiz |
about timbal's proc... do those mini shadow bolt consume ImpSB? or are they affected by it?
Currently our raid is most likely 1-2 spriest, 3 (few times 2, but no lower then 2.. oftern it's rather 4 destro lock :P.. so 3 as a midline value) destru lock, 1 affli lock.. If timbal's proc consumes ISB, then it's pretty much worthless since the destru lock would have to compensate for spriest (no isb refresh)+ afflilock (low ISB refresh) + timbal's x3 (no ISB refresh), thus making it pretty useless since it would make pretty much hellish to mantain ISB up.. any help? :P (haven't dropped it so far, so i can't test firsthand..) | ||||||||||||
| #2099 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | clavarnway |
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| #2100 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | witchedwiz | |||||||||||||
| #2101 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Arelenda |
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Except rating doesn't work like that. 12.6 hit rating = 1% hit 22.1 crit rating = 1% crit You need almost twice rating to obtain the "same" effect. (well, not same, but comparable) Obtaining hit chance isn't more effective, but obtaining hit rating is. | ||||||||||||
| #2102 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
Yes 1% hit is already not far off from 1% crit, and costs a lot less in itemization (requires a lot less rating), resulting in hit being much better for destruction warlocks to the point where it's absolutely silly to not cap it with any realistic gear setup (at least since the introduction of hit gems quite a long time ago). If you don't feel the difference of having more hit, you'll even more not feel the difference of having more spell damage or crit. The average DPS is there, and while it has variance, it doesn't matter when it comes to choosing the stats, as the randomness can help you just as much as it can hurt you.
Keep in mind that a few extra %s to your DPS will not be incredibly noticeable, but there's no reason not to deal those few % extra DPS if you're capable of doing so. At the end how well you play will have a much more significant effect. I wouldn't bring "difficult to play" as an argument against fire. Since I don't think there's something wrong with the spreadsheet, if it tells you fire should be better than the fire warlocks simply needs to play better, not spec to something easier. Of course for some people WoW is just too hard of a game, tell them to go play checkers or something | ||||||||||||
| #2103 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Kimmee |
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| #2104 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | cynics |
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You are a terribad if you are picking crit over hit, haste, or dmg, as a destro lock raiding SSC/TK/MH/BT/SW. Edit: in addition to this hit is a cheaper stat to get 1% so that means you are allocating those points elsewhere. Last edited by cynics : 03/28/08 at 2:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2105 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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This is DPS you are not providing to the raid. Shouldn't you subtract that amount from the Fire DPS because this is DPS that you are taking away from the raid by specc'ing fire? | ||||||||||||
| #2106 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
Change in DPS = Shadow spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire - fire spec personal DPS
Wether you calculate (Shadow spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow) - (raid ISB DPS as fire + fire spec personal DPS) or calculate (Shadow spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire) - fire spec personal DPS You would get the same results. That's why I said add the rest-of-raid ISB DPS to the fire spec's DPS as you also added that DPS to the shadow spec while that DPS would've been done even if you weren't specced shadow. 1% crit is generally > 1% hit (by a little). There's nothing stupid by taking 1% crit over 1% hit. However 1 crit rating is far inferior to 1 hit rating if you're under the hit cap due to the rating system, which is why hit rating is incredibly powerful - so much that you should generally be capped with any gearset that maximizes destruction DPS (affliction is not the same as it gains slightly more dps from 1 spell damage than 1 hit rating, although due to how little it gains from crit you will end up choosing dmg/hit item and end up close to the hit cap anyway and at a certain gear level be hit capped without even trying - but affliction has no reason to purposely cap hit as it's not as incredibly powerful as it is for destruction). Don't flame about things you don't know. | ||||||||||||
| #2107 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Tornwings |
justa quick question, but can anyone link me the spreadsheet?
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| #2108 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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it should be (Shadow spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow) - (fire spec personal DPS - (raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire)) because not only are you changing your personal dps, you are also reducing the raid ISB DPS by the lack of your ISBs. You cannot ADD ISB dps to fire, because fire shows no gain and does not give any benefit to raid ISB DPS. | ||||||||||||
| #2109 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | rakeling |
i apologize if this was already covered, but is CoR a good idea on Gruul? do any of his special abilities put him in the same category as bosses who cleave and mortal strike? thanks
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| #2110 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Morwen |
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| #2111 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
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Shadow spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow - fire spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire = Shadow spec personal DPS + 2Xraid ISB DPS as shadow - fire spec personal DPS - raid ISB DPS as fire As you can see your formula is incorrect due to counting raid ISB DPS as shadow twice. The correct formula for DPS difference from changing from fire to shadow would be: Shadow spec personal DPS + raid ISB DPS as shadow - fire spec personal DPS - raid ISB DPS as fire (so no 2Xraid ISB DPS as shadow) The logic behind it is that you look at the DPS difference which means you don't count raid ISB DPS that would've happen without you towards the shadow spec. Another way to look at it is: Shadow spec personal DPS + (raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire) - fire spec personal DPS (brackets not needed, just for clarification) All the (correct) formulas I posted are the exact same thing only with different ordering of elements hoping people understand at least one of them and realize it's equivalent to all the others. | ||||||||||||
| #2112 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Suggestive |
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| #2113 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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(Shadow spec personal DPS + [raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire]) - (fire spec personal DPS - [raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire]) Edit: Looking at my own, I believe I see where I was wrong, since you can you could reorder this as Shadow DPS + Shadow ISB - Fire DPS - Fire ISB Edit 2: Cutting it down to look less like an ass Last edited by Vlar : 03/28/08 at 4:28 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2114 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | LockApologist |
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| #2115 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | LockApologist |
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Combining terms, your formula gives: = Shadow spec personal DPS + 2x [raid ISB DPS as shadow - raid ISB DPS as fire] - fire spec personal DPS you've just inflated the difference between the two specs by a factor of 2. Galozhar's formula is correct. The raid will still have ISB dps with or without you. So, you have to factor the raid ISB dps w/o you from the raid ISB dps with you (i.e. find your contribution to ISB uptime, and thus raid ISB dps). | ||||||||||||
| #2116 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
Yeah the spreadsheet far from assumes 100% DoT uptime. Set the dot-gap time to be whatever you think is reasonable. So that's definitely not a place where "theorycraft fails the reality test".
The exact DoT-gap will depend on your haste but it should generally be quite lower than 2s, making the spreadsheet's 2s as an overestimation meaning the spreadsheet actually declares *lower* DPS than you should expect if you play properly. Last edited by galzohar : 03/28/08 at 4:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2117 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Morwen |
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| #2118 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | LockApologist |
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But, regardless if you only go to 6, you are left with the option of: a) Immo, Incinx6, LT b) Immo, Incinx6, Incin w/o Immo c) Immo, Incinx6, conflag/clip Immo if you choose a), any haste you have is pretty much wasted, as you are in the same cast timeline as someone who has no haste. Personally, I typically alternate a), b), with occasional double LT. | ||||||||||||
| #2119 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
With 5% haste on gear you have exactly 7 incinerates per immolate. In reality you'll need a little more haste than that due to losing a few fractions of a second every cast even with the new casting system.
With 0% haste on gear 6Xincinerate+(optional tap)+immo would work exactly right, with immo landing a few fractions of a second (due to lost time between casts) after it wears off if you don't life tap, and 1.5s after if you do, so the average DoT gap is 1.5*(average # of lifetaps / number of immolates) which is always lower than 1.5s. With any more haste you have to lifetap every rotation which could, in most (but not all) group setups/fight lengths, make you have more mana than you need, which is the only way you would deal less DPS than expected. If you have your haste higher enough than 5% to reliably get 7 incinerates between immolates you no longer have to lifetap to make the rotation work, and your DoT-gap will go up to about 1.5*(1 + average # of lifetaps / number of immolates) which is between 1.5 and 3 seconds. This number goes down a little as haste increases (even with 5% haste it would be slightly lower since GCDs are shortened by haste as well but this is close enough to get the idea through). As long as your rotation is working (no incinerates without immolate and no leftover mana at the end of the fight) and know what DoT-gap to enter to the spreadsheet, and as long as you play properly, I don't see how you should get less DPS than theorycrafted. | ||||||||||||
| #2120 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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Last edited by Vlar : 03/28/08 at 5:51 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2121 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Arelenda |
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Hit rating is better _because_ it is a cheaper stat, not in addition to it. Let's keep this thread constructive and friendly, shall we? | ||||||||||||
| #2122 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | cynics |
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if we are talking about the best overall % for any of the following stats (hit, crit, haste, dmg) then until you are hit capped, hit is by far the best stat for increasing DPS. Also with how current itemization points are allocated there isn't a item with enough crit to make up for hit when you aren't hit capped. Choosing 1% crit over 1% hit when you are not hit capped is wrong. if we go into that a bit further there might be a point at which it would be a good idea to get a crit item over a hit item (when you aren't hit capped) but there are very few if any items with those kind of points allocated like that. "Hit rating is better _because_ it is a cheaper stat, not in addition to it." What are you talking about reread my post. i said that hit is allocated better? let me clarify read below. ![]()
i agree that flaming is lame but his post was just ignorant, but i shouldn't have got all emo, i a noob aswell; thanks calling me out i did deserve it. Last edited by cynics : 03/28/08 at 7:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2123 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Thebeefe |
Anyone able to elaborate on how the Mgt Heroic trinket is better than the Icon?
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| #2124 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
You're still wrong. While 1 hit rating is better than 1 crit rating, 1% hit is NOT better than 1% crit. They're close with 1% crit being a bit better, making your "taking 1% crit over 1% hit when not hit capped is very bad" comment completely wrong. You're right that hit is cheaper though - that's the only reason 1 hit rating is better than 1 crit rating. But 1% crit is a little better than 1% hit.
This is all regarding if you're under the hit cap, obviously, as hit becomes much less useful once you're capped (practically as good as the spell damage you could gain by swapping out hit elsewhere). | ||||||||||||
| #2125 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | rochan |
You are all wrong.
The relationship of 1% hit vs 1% crit varies with levels of gear. As you gain more crit, 1% hit becomes more valuable and passes 1% crit. At SWP gear levels, losing 1% hit will hurt your DPS more than losing 1% crit, thus, 1% hit > 1% crit. Last edited by rochan : 03/28/08 at 7:20 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2126 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | cynics |
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As far as if it is better then the Icon yes it is the icon is ~15 dps on use. There was a post on the official forums with a lot more detailed information than what i'm giving you. ![]()
Getting to the hit cap for raiding is the best way to increase your DPS hands down. Also if you are smart you would swap out gear for trash as you don't need 16% hit. You are right that if you are looking at the allocation of points it takes to get 1% crit vs 1% hit then yes crit is worth more in terns of an item budget but items with % were taken out before Naxx in replace of +points, so why are we talking in percentages. | ||||||||||||
| #2127 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Arnath |
Timbal's Focusing Crystal (copied from a post on Wowhead):
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EDIT: An important consequence of the fact that it benefits from shadow damage buffs is that it's probably only better than the Icon in a raid situation (where you'll have all of CoS, Misery, Shadow Weaving, etc. up on the target). In regards to all the other people arguing that 1% hit is > 1% crit, this continues to not be true no matter how many times you say it. Assuming you're not at the hit cap, hit rating is better than crit rating point for point. However, 1% of crit is better than 1% of hit regardless of gear level (again, assuming you're not hit capped). Look at the spreadsheet and plug in numbers if you don't believe this. | ||||||||||||
| #2128 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Edhrin |
Omg it's the second time I edit this post and it comes too late since someone posted it before me :p
Sorry about that. Last edited by Edhrin : 03/28/08 at 8:29 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2129 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | • frmorrison |
The "procs" from trinket such as Timbal's and lightning capacitor and the Exalted SSC necklace while being a Scryers both use your spell hit and spell crit, so that is something else to take into account when looking at these items.
It is true 1% to crit is better than 1% to hit, however the large difference in rating will alway make 1 spell hit > 1 spell crit (until 202 hit rating). | ||||||||||||
| #2130 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | cynics |
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1% hit = 13 hit rating 1% crit = 22 crit rating DPS wise 1% hit is > 1% crit. (Edit: until you are hit capped) if you need me to save my sheet for you so u can see spec and gear i can do that, but im in mid T6 gear. http://www.societymadehim.com/stuff/wrong.JPG | ||||||||||||
| #2131 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | • frmorrison |
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| #2132 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Arelenda |
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I also suggest doing research before posting, to everyone, in general. This back and forth arguing, unbacked by sheets and proof, is getting us nowhere. As for the hit vs crit (we're still talking 0/21/40 here): example given: 90% hit chance (absurdly low). bolts hit for 2000 on average. Since a crit is double damage and then some because of ISB, you can estimate crits as anywhere between 200-300% damage (since it includes dots). I'll use 220% per crit, or 4400 (2400 bonus damage per crit) 1% hit will make one of 100 bolts hit (gain over 10k bolts: 200k damage) 1% crit will make one the bolts that hit, crit (gain over 10k bolts: 9k hits, so 90 extra crits, 90x2400=216k damage) This is not counting Soul Shatter, which is a good argument for maxing hit, but we were arguing for raw dps. That is with 90% hit which is less than 100 hit rating, an absurdly low amount. I don't see how haste, crit or +damage would reasonably influence the outcome. Stack more hit and you'll see even more damage from increasing crit. The break even point is somewhere at 30-40 hit rating (assuming 220% crits). If you want a more detailed overview, feel free to use the spreadsheet, you'll reach the same conclusion. If I'm wrong, I'll accept that, but I'll need to see proof. To the person asking about Gruul: CoR is a must. Especially during the earlier phases when Gruul hits like a sissy, tanks are rage starved. If you like, you can remove it near the end, if tanks are getting pummeled bad. With the gear currently available, it's hardly an issue. | ||||||||||||
| #2133 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
1% hit gives slightly more than 1% personal DPS and 1% crit gives slightly less than 1% DPS but also gives ISB uptime. At any realistic gear level and raid setup the ISB uptime would more than make up for it if you look at the spreadsheet. While gear levels and raid setups where 1% hit could beat 1% crit those simply don't really happen in the real game.
Your speradsheet doesn't seem to take into account raid ISB DPS and already shows hit very close to crit. Adding raid ISB DPS would be enough to push crit a little over hit when you comapre 1% of each, which is what I've been saying for the last couple pages. CoR on gruul at the start is always a good thing. The damage increase from CoR gets multiplied with the grows so sooner or later you should replace it with a different curse. The better geared your raid is the longer you can keep it up, but with every raid it should be up for some portion of the fight. Last edited by galzohar : 03/29/08 at 9:59 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2134 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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But yes, thanks to the new badge gear, it is much easier to get away with tossing CoR on Gruul. Prior to that it was only really advisable for one cast. (while you were still learning the fight and didn't have much gear) | ||||||||||||
| #2135 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Goedel |
Arelenda, what you left out is that, just as the value of crit increases with hit and damage, the value of hit also increases with crit (and everything else). Continuing with your example numbers (starting with a 90% hit chance, 220% damage per crit, bolts hitting for 2000 on *non-crit* average), let's also assume a starting crit chance of 30%.
1% hit then, as you say, adds an average of 1 hit per 100 bolts, but, the part you omitted, that 1 hit has a 30% chance of being a crit. So, from adding 1% hit, the gain over 10k bolts (100 more hits) is not 200k damage (100 regular hits) but 272k damage (70 regular hits, 30 crits). Now, it may still be that the raid dps gain from Improved Shadow Bolt achieved by increasing the % of hits that crit outweighs this, as galzohar says, but let's be clear about how much it needs to outweigh. | ||||||||||||
| #2136 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Arelenda |
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Giving 25% crit chance (30% crit with 7% hit is rather odd as gear choice) and a bit higher ISB factor shows them as equal. The spreadsheet screenshot didn't load for me, so I didn't read that part. I think the main premise still holds: the major difference is rating values. The difference shown between crit and hit is way less than the almost double price in ratings. Last edited by Arelenda : 03/29/08 at 10:44 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2137 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
Breakdown of the screenshot:
The first thing was his base stats: dmg: 1318 shadow: 237 fire: 80 hit: 139 crit: 210 dps: 1690 second part was adding 13 hit rating dps: 1709 third part was adding 22 crit rating: dps: 1707 so he gained 2 dps from adding 1% hit instead of 1% crit. | ||||||||||||
| #2138 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
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Besides he said it's "completely dumb to take 1% crit over 1% hit" which even if it's a loss of 2 DPS is far from "completely dumb", on top of the fact you're actually gaining dps with 1% crit over 1% hit becuase of ISB. Obviously if you ignore ISB 1% hit will have an edge over 1% crit. | ||||||||||||
| #2139 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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But as said above 1% more hit is also more chances to crit. /DA I wonder how much ISB is effected by a 1% in crit on 1 warlock compared to 1% more chances to have the crit. | ||||||||||||
| #2140 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Goedel |
Vlar, adding hit for increased ISB uptime is a reasonable "devil's advocate" concern, but the thing is that misses don't consume ISB charges, while non-crit hits do. So while a greater hit chance does increase the chance of getting a crit and thereby applying ISB, it also increases the chance of getting a regular hit and thereby consuming ISB that is already up. This does not mean that adding hit chance lowers ISB uptime (some quick sanity checks at border cases can refute that idea), but it does help explain in fuzzy terms why, if the models are correct, adding crit chance is a more effective way to increase ISB uptime.
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| #2141 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Arelenda |
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| #2142 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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Given: Hit: 90% base Crit: 25% base Shadowbolt casts: 100 Damage on hit: 1000 Damage on Crit: 2000 Base: 90 hits, 22.5 of them being crits Hit Damage: 67500 Crit Damage: 45000 Total: 112500 91% hit, 25% crit: 91 hits, 22.75 of them crits Hit Damage: 68250 Crit Damage: 45500 Total: 113750 90% hit, 26% crit: 90 hits, 23.4 of them crits Hit Damage: 66600 Crit Damage: 46800 Total: 113400 Difference between 1% hit and 1% crit: you gain 350 dmg, 1 more hit and .65 less crits by taking 1% hit over 1% crit so even then you would have almost exactly the same ISB uptime. | ||||||||||||
| #2143 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
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Hit rating though is still a much bigger DPS increase under the hit cap due to its cost. Haste rating, crit rating and spell damage are close enough to eachother to refer to the spreadsheet with your gear and raid composition to tell the difference. But comparing % to %, or 22.1 crit rating to 12.6 hit rating, crit simply comes on top by being equal to more or less equal amounts of spell damage, while 12.6 hit falls a bit lower in spell damage equivalence (how much exactly does depend). All of this is easy to see on leuler's spreadsheet if you put in the correct stats and realistic raid composition for the ISB model. | ||||||||||||
| #2144 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | oscredwin |
Question in practicality, how does one get 1% hit(aside from hit rating)? Preferably in some format that can be traded for crit.
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| #2145 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Thebeefe |
The talent Supression is the only other way, each point provides 2% +hit for AFFLICTION ONLY. For destruction (Shadow Bolt, Immolate etc) there is no other way other than +hit rating.
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| #2146 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | oscredwin |
That's what i thought, but is there any where in the whole wide world (of warcraft) that someone ever makes the trade off of 1% crit vs 1% hit?
More productive area of inquiry, has anyone done testing in how much spelldamage the exalted SSO proc's are worth? | ||||||||||||
| #2147 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Thebeefe |
Not any more, before 2.0(i think) items were giving a % of crit and hit, not a rating value. At that time you could trade 1% hit for 1% crit directly, nowadays its much more complicated, hence discussions such as this.
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| #2148 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Akj |
Only close situation I can think of is a warlock with 14% hit choosing between an elemental shaman, moonkin (2%hit v 2% crit).
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| #2149 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
Most tradeoffs in gear choice do come down to a hit vs crit in certain amounts, so it's not a completely moot point.
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| #2150 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | PSGarak |
A question that came to mind: does [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] make Immolate worth casting?
I realize this isn't relevant even to a large class of Affliction warlocks, where immolate is already worth casting. I'm actually on the borderline: with about 350 more shadow than fire, Immolate has a higher DPCT than shadowbolt but according to the spreadsheet the extra fraction of a lifetap actually means it lowers my DPS. In any case, the more general question is: how much does Timbal's affect Immolate? (a slightly more general question is how does a fourth (or Nth) DoT affect Timbal's, which is relevant to the UA vs Ruin debate.) So, given a 10% proc rate and a 15s internal cooldown: Adding Immolate (or a fourth DoT of any kind) adds one tick per three seconds, bringing your expectation of the proc time from 15 + 10*(3/3) = 25 to 15 + 10*(3/4) = 22.5 This decreases the time between procs by 10% exactly, increasing the frequency of procs by 1/9 = 11%. The DPS of the proc, 380/25 = 15.2 (pre-debuffs) base, goes up by 15.2/9 =~ 1.7 (also pre-debuffs). So Timbal's increases the value of your fourth DoT by 1.7 DPS, scaled by debuffs on the mob. Note that due to the internal cooldown and the way fractions work, Timbal's gives higher marginal advantage to adding a third DoT and less to adding a fifth. However, most edge cases (immolate and UA vs ruin) deal with adding a fourth DoT. Last edited by PSGarak : Yesterday at 5:57 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2151 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Darkstone |
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Cept the shaman gives 2% crit with the hit too... :P On the Hit vs Crit ISB uptime argument, I think there's a detail that some of the folks are missing. If you have a 90% chance to hit, there's a 10% chance to miss. If you have a 25% chance to crit, there's also a 10% chance to miss. I think it would take hours of combat simulation to produce documentable solid granite evidence, but 1% to hit (if not capped) is still better for ISB uptime than 1% of crit is, for this reason alone... Oh, and Hi EJ =) PS: whomever made/maintains the warlock spreadsheet is my personal hero. Edit: I suppose that could be mis-read, I don't mean that after the crit the 10% miss is applied specifically to the crit, like it gets its own roll or something. My understanding (and that shared by folks i've theorycrafted with) is that this is how the attack rolls go: 1) Shadow Bolt Casted 2) Does it crit? 3) Does it hit? 4) Whatever on-hit or on-crit procs you may have like Soul Leech or gear procs. Correct me if I'm wrong though =) Last edited by Darkstone : 03/30/08 at 1:57 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2152 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Arelenda |
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Last edited by Arelenda : 03/30/08 at 5:20 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2153 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | galzohar |
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For example on lieuler's spreadsheet adding 30 crit rating would increase ISB uptime by 1.48% while losing 30 hit rating will reduce ISB uptime by 0.33%. It's no surprise as increasing the hits by even more than 2% when you have 25% crit still increases the chance of a certain spell to crit by a bit higher than 0.5%, while increasing chance to crit by 1% would increase chance for a given spell to hit and crit by almost 1%. Again, % per % crit is clearly better, the only reason hit wins is because of the rating conversions being that much cheaper. And there's a reason they're cheaper otherwise nobody would use that stat. | ||||||||||||
| #2154 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | PSGarak |
Sorry, I meant to say 15 seconds. It's the number used in the calculations, I just missed a keystroke in the description. In any case, both the proc rate and cooldown was pulled from wowhead.
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| #2155 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | Vlar |
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So where is my math incorrect? by the numbers I gave, at 25% crit and 90% hit, 1% hit is equal to .35% crit, making less than 1 less crit over 100 casts. Edit: Why would it roll on crit first? Doesn't it have to hit before it can crit with spells? Last edited by Vlar : 03/30/08 at 7:45 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2156 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Roywyn |
Hm, is it possible to add a little 2-line comment in the compendium that Mana Potions are the best consumable to use for maximising DPS in a fight where some life taps/dark pacts while standing still are required?
Our warlocks were quite surprised by that, I fetched some quotes from the thread and a link to the spreadsheet, trying to convince them. Even just a little entry near "Additional tips and tricks" would be enough, just to give that pretty vital info in an otherwise great compendium. | ||||||||||||
| #2157 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | XStoliX |
The World of Warcraft Armory
This is my character. My rough unbuffed stats as of now: Spelldmg: 1097 Hitrating: 111 8.80% Crit rating: 305 23.38% Penetration: 44 Haste: 0 Buffed: Crit: 25.72% (30.72 with devastation) Hit: 8.8% Spelldmg: 1330 (adept, bufffood, spelldmg oil fel armor and spirit buff) Buffed + Ele schaman Draenei: Crit: 28.72% (32.72% with devastation) hit: 12.8% Spelldmg: 1431 (adept, bufffood, spelldmg oil fel armor and spirit buff + totem) This screenshot was taken a while ago, while doing Anetheron http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...308_205418.jpg I was in the tankgroup though i was allowed to sacc sukkubus for extra damage. I usually ride at about 1200 DPS, with a support group i can reach 1300 to a maximum of 1.4 K which was my highest so far, i dont count fights like gorefiend where i can do 1.5 1.6K dps. As you can see im extremely low on hitrating as i do prefer crit. It seems to give me the better results dps wise, a high ISB uptime for the raid and my DPS is steady and rocking i usually am one of the better dds ranking between 1-3 in the damage done list. I had about 18K dmg lost due to partial resists on this fight and this is not counting the 8 Shadowbolts that were completely resisted at least this is what recount showed me. My question is the following, in terms of gems and stat allocation which stat would be ultimately superior for me in terms of pure dps, hit rating or pushing for even more crit rating and ignoring the spelldmg i.e replacing some 4 crit 5 spelldmg gems with 8 crit gems? Im not very good at theory crafting but i Study chemistry and im pretty good at mathematics so if you have some calculations for me to do that would be awesome I really appreciate any help. | ||||||||||||
| #2158 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 | Thanahtos |
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| #2159 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.0 Edited onPatch 2.4.0 | XStoliX |
I dont really like the spreadsheet due to alot of reasons, Ive used it and the numbers were way to random and unrealistic thats why i have a strong distaste towards it although it is a handy tool.
Besides the spreadsheet shows me id do about 1600 DPS which never happens =/ Last edited by XStoliX : 03/30/08 at 11:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2160 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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| #2161 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | XStoliX |
Arelenda ive read the compendium and i play my WL since BWL :P
The problem with the theorycraft and the hit-rating concept is that its still a subject to the theory of big numbers, which means if i record my data for an infinate amount of time id see the theoretically calculated number of miss% crit% etc, the truth is that in raiding in any given circumstances this theory becomes obsolete quickly =/ the only other WL that does comparable damage is at 160 hit rating with a tack more spelldmg and less crit. In most encounters i easily do a bit more damage than he does, sure maybe im lucky and im hitting with ISB on the mob most of the time, id have to install shadowseer to check up on that theory. But the interresting thing is how crit% and spelldmg seems more beneficial to me, even though i have 111 hitrating i resist a lot less than my buddy does, sure thats luck based, but even when our resists are on par with each other i do more damage due to stacking more crit. And im just curious about the math here and the logic, why would i want to get more hitrating if it really doesnt make such a big difference in terms of DPS, i would love to resocket to hit and see how that affects my damage but i want to see the math first =/ | ||||||||||||
| #2162 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Gaborn |
I would like to know your logic to stack crit. Crit is an statistical stat too and stacking it, based on your logic could not give you the results you want because the number os casts in a fight is too small.
So your logic is flawled and because of that you are wrong. | ||||||||||||
| #2163 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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Some quick math and working with the sheet showed me that for my gear and spec, [Super Mana Potion] scores about 50% better than a destro pot. The gap becomes smaller when considering Bloodlust/Heroism and high haste rates, but even then mana pots seemed to be better. Note that destro pots combined with Bloodlust/Heroism during any special phase (such as a vulnerability or wild magic or somesuch) can be the better option. Given the relative low extra dps output from these things (less than 50dps by optimistic estimates), I think that unless you're having major trouble with an enrage, it's safer to skip the potions and have an extra emergency button in the form of a [Super Healing Potion] or [Super Rejuvenation Potion] or a [Mad Alchemist's Potion]. I'll update the compendium when I have some more time. | ||||||||||||
| #2164 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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If you're looking at damage meters for one fight, they won't be representative. If you take them from an entire raid's worth, it'll contain about half as much trash damage as boss damage, depending on how much time you spent on each. Except on trash, the hit cap is 50ish. Hit is useless against the majority of the mobs you're fighting. If you fought bosses exclusively, the difference would be much more noticeable. The main premise for stacking hit is that it is the best way to increase your dps against bosses, which is where dps matters. While one could make some valid points against this, this is why people tell you to stack hit. I don't recommend using ShadowSeer at this point, it needs a rewrite for 2.4, which is not something I'll work on soon. I want 2.4 to stabilize first. Last edited by Arelenda : Yesterday at 3:13 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2165 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | SchLing |
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The spreadsheet is using math under optimal conditions, and so it will also give you the optimal number of your DPS. I doesn't take account for lag, movement and the players ability to play his character effectivly. In addition, if you take your stats and set your hit up from 8% to 16% you will see that you gain 1700DPS instead for 1600DPS. So, even if the spreadsheet is giving you number you can not live up to in a real enviroment it still shows you that over time hit will give more damage. And in the long run average wins. | ||||||||||||
| #2166 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ChrisTheLock |
Quick Question
I might be in the wrong forum, if i am i apologize, my question is i currently have 2 pc T4 and Spellstrike Set, i was wondering what is my next step to improve my dps. If someone could armory and let me know in their opnion what is the next step i would need to take. Or what gear i should be shooting for.
Ty in advance | ||||||||||||
| #2167 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ♦ masanbol |
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The spreadsheet will never tell you exactly down to the last DPS point exactly what you will put out on a given fight, but it's a great way to model a perfect situation. Just because it can't tell you perfectly what you're capable of doesn't make it useless. It's easily the most effective tool for a warlock to model ideal DPS for our specs, and if it gave you an answer you didn't like or didn't want to hear, there isn't very much we can do about it, and we aren't here to validate your assumptions. | ||||||||||||
| #2168 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ChrisTheLock |
I have read and tried all this mixing matching placin and replacing. I was asking for own personal experience what someone would suggest. I guess you can take it as im a perfectionist.
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| #2169 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ♦ masanbol |
The spreadsheet will tell you exactly what stat is best to next improve your DPS. The first post in this thread has links to the spreadsheet as well as plenty of other good information about gearing.
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| #2170 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | shed |
Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't find it. But at which point do incinerate spec'd warlocks provide more raid dps than shadowbolt/impsb locks when scorch is up.
Scenario is something like : -all curses up -2 spriests in raid -2-3 fire mages -3 destro locks -1 affliction lock | ||||||||||||
| #2171 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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| #2172 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Bandoer |
Looking over WWS parses for Brutallus, the best fire and the best shadow performances were about the same, around 2300 dps.
Wow Web Stats | ||||||||||||
| #2173 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Cronjob |
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| #2174 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Bandoer |
Draxyl - WWS - 2315 dps as fire
Xelnag - WWS - 2200 dps as fire That was just from the top 2 parses. Most locks are still shadow but the few that were fire were pretty much on par with shadow. | ||||||||||||
| #2175 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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Durcyn - 2295 dps as shadow, 34% crit adding on to: Zuran - 1477 dps Shadow Priest -and- Werp - 1934 dps affliction warlock with 25% crit on bolts If we take the dps difference between the fire lock and the shadow lock and divide it by the combined dps of the shadow dps'ers, shouldnt it show the percent of dps for each which ISB needed to provide to make up the difference? (If I am completely off, I will edit this out) DPS difference = 20 Combined Shadow = 5706 dps 20/5706 = .003505 So ISB would have needed to make up 0.35% of each of there dps to equal the fire lock. (does that sound correct?) Edit: as to the second one, there were no shadowlocks in that kill to compare to. Edit 2: added Werp's crit rate Edit 3: more of my usual bad math skills. Last edited by Vlar : Yesterday at 3:29 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2176 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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| #2177 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | cynics |
i was talking to Durcyn about that attempt and he said:
<cyn> durcyn, do you typically get out out dps'd by firelocks <cyn> cause i noticed your dps time was 97% where as draxyl was 100% * bump is now known as bumpmeetingbump <durcyn> there was some movement on that attempt, iirc <cyn> ah <durcyn> and no, he's just recently gone fire, and has picked up more haste, so it's a bit early to tell | ||||||||||||
| #2178 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Cronjob |
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Wow Web Stats I was looking at the DPS but also the total damage out for comparison purposes. Number of bolts etc. EDIT: I noticed I matched their damage out but not in DPS.(not sure how that impacts anything) Also both have the same damage out. Our top lock however is insane. | ||||||||||||
| #2179 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | • kendra |
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| #2180 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Tornwings |
Sorry if this has been answered before but I can't find it in the main post or in the pages i've read so far. How much of a dps is increase is the exalted hyjal caster ring over the revered one? I also can't find it in the spreadsheet, since it's a proc and not a stat.
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| #2181 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
Reading the first post helps...
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| #2182 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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| #2183 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | calisti |
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Avg proc period for a CD proc: CD + [attack period] * (1-proc%) / proc% You'll also find the +damage value of the proc on this tab. The spreadsheet then takes the average damage bonus of the proc and adds it to the overall spell damage bonus for the ring. Note that this value actually varies depending upon your your talent spec and spell timing. And in case you're wondering, my spreadsheet lists the average value of the proc as +14.41 damage. | ||||||||||||
| #2184 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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| #2185 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
Actually, if you gave a spreadsheet enough data it would give you the DPS down to the point at least up to the level of randomness. However the time in a fight you spend not DPSing, and the luck or lack of luck you get on hits/crits, will have little to no effect on optimal gear choices, which is why the spreadsheet is so great.
If you waste little time not dpsing in a fight and play up to the level the spreadsheet is expecting you to play, you'll actually come pretty close to the DPS listed there. This isn't possible on all fights though, but still aside from small mana regen factors that still work while moving, in a fight where you DPS 80% of the time you should more or less get 80% of the spreadsheet's listed DPS. And remember an error of up to 5% (or even more on shorter fights) is very reasonable due to randomness of crits, but it doesn't change the way you pick stats as increasing the average increases not only the average but also the minimum and maximum reasonable expected DPS, helping both during "reasonable bad luck" and "reasonable good luck". As for ignoring hit, that's going to do great on trash meters but isn't going to do good on bosses. While % per % crit is much stronger (which you can see on the spreadsheet by adding your DPS increase from 1% crit and raid ISB DPS increase and comparing to what you'd get from your DPS increase and raid ISB DPS increase if you add 1% hit), you need much more crit rating than hit rating to gain 1% which makes hit rating the ultimate stat for boss DPS until capped. Bosses is what makes progress though, and therefore that's what people theorycraft for. If you want to farm faster (especially outside of raids) it'd take a completely different kind of theorycraft which will give quite different results (favoring spell damage a lot more and hit a lot less and giving damage/crit different weighting depending how much either would help to actually kill a mob in less spells depending on its HP etc). Trash meters, while requring similar gearing to boss gearing, are completely independant of hit rating (+5% hit on gear would cap you on everything that's not a boss) and therefore looking at full instance clears will greatly discourage hit capping. Not to mention that you need to remember at the end, any theorycrafting is very hard to measure in practice due to a lot of reasons with the main ones being play skill, non-DPS fight elements and luck of the dice, but it doesn't make them any less valid, as on average (and in the long run) going by the theorycraft *will* increase the DPS you're dealing. | ||||||||||||
| #2186 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Gnomish |
Having a little trouble with the speadsheet.
***Edit. Moved this question to a different thread.***
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| #2187 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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ISB DPS (copied and pasted, not sure how the formating will go): Number of shadow users 5 Raid Setup You SU 2 SU 3 SU 4 SU 5 type warlock warlock SP SP crit 21 15 25 0 0 hit 14 16 16 16 16 SB cast time 2.38 2.5 2.4 SB cast % 93.82% 60% 94% MB Freq (s) 7.5 7.5 Shadow DPS 1728.3 1200 1100 1100 1100 Base: +Damage: 1616 Crit: 10 Hit: 14 DPS:1549.32 ISB: 39.73% +1% hit: DPS: 1565.25 ISB: 39.72% +1% crit DPS: 1665.5 ISB: 40.45% Base: +Damage: 1616 Crit: 15 Hit: 14 DPS:1630.41 ISB: 43.2% +1% hit: DPS: 1647.26 ISB: 43.3% +1% crit DPS: 1646.68 ISB: 43.98% Base: +Damage: 1616 Crit: 20 Hit: 14 DPS:1711.93 ISB: 46.68% +1% hit: DPS: 1729.7 ISB: 46.72% +1% crit DPS: 1646.68 ISB: 47.34% Results: By choosing 1% hit instead of 1% crit 10% crit shows a loss of .73% ISB uptime 15% crit shows a loss of .68% ISB uptime 20% crit shows a loss if .62% ISB uptime So at multiple gear levels, there will be an insignificant change in ISB uptime (about 7 crits every 1000 casts). Edit: clarification Edit 2: ISB is the Total Shadow DPS under the Raid ISB Tab (removed) Edit 3: ISB changed to ISB Uptime. Last edited by Vlar : Yesterday at 7:49 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2188 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #2189 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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Edit: the ISB I posted is useless, ignore it while I update. Last edited by Vlar : Yesterday at 7:37 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2201 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | cladnin |
I suppose that helps, seems like something that could be useful to be listed however. However, I see nothing mentioned about a spreadsheet on any of the first lines before he goes into spec detail, smart ass.
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| #2202 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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If it is such a huge difference because of ISB uptime, why is the uptime effected by less than 1%? | ||||||||||||
| #2203 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
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edit: Name-calling will get you no where Cladnin, there's another thread in the Class Mechanics forums called "another Warlock DPS Spreadsheet" or something like that. Use that spreadsheet, it will answer all your questions that were asked at least twenty times before. | ||||||||||||
| #2204 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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It is in the first post. ![]()
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| #2205 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | cladnin | |||||||||||||
| #2206 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
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edit: If you want a warlock to do the optimum DPS, he should spec DS/S&F. If you want support, he should go UA Affliction, with 5/5 SE, 3/3 Malediction, and 3/3 Improved Imp. | ||||||||||||
| #2207 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | dsl1 |
Difference between Fire and Shadow Destro at high gear levels is too minimal to switch.
Shadow scales better with damage and sunwell gear supports that. | ||||||||||||
| #2208 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
Last edited by Vlar : 04/01/08 at 1:55 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2209 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Derezzed |
I love the spreadsheet (it will be taking away a lot of valuable work time) but what I don't get is that, no matter what I seem to do, or what variations on gear I select, Felguard is always the most DPS.
I've changed from FSW/Spellstrike to T4 and T5 and T6, but the 2 Felguard specs are always the highest dps. Am I doing something wrong? I will admit I need to play around with it a bit more, but no matter how much gear I change around, Demo/Destro is always number one. If I have 30% crit or 5% crit, it doesn't matter. oh yeah, and fire locks are higher DPS than shadow as well. I am confused. | ||||||||||||
| #2210 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar | |||||||||||||
| #2211 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
I plug incin spec for my gear(changing cloak/wep enchant obv and adding a few veiled pyrestone to makeup for cloak hit) and get a 30dps gain(and this is assuming magic 100% immolate uptime), lose 8% ISB uptime, lose nether protection, lose soul leech. Draw conclusions from that as you will..
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| #2212 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
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| #2213 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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The so called "less than 1% ISB uptime increase" is more than enough raid DPS increase to make 1% crit better than 1% hit. Just look at the final numbers after inserting all data to see what gives you more if you can't just look at the bigger picture and see that 1% hit is barely more personal DPS than 1% crit but noticeably less raid DPS from ISB uptime. Remember even 0.5% ISB increase is 0.1% DPS per shadow user which is kind of equivalent to 0.5% DPS increase to a single shadow user, which is slightly less than 1/2 of the benefit of 1% hit. Add that to the "almost as good as 1% hit" DPS you get from 1% crit and you get clearly more total raid DPS from 1% crit than 1% hit. But again, hit rating is so much cheaper even with crit being in the area of 1.5X (more or less... but not even close to high enough margin of error to make it lower than 1) better than hit, hit is still about 1.7X cheaper due to the rating system (itemization cost) and thus better to stack until cap. Just because you get a small number doesn't mean it's insignificant. A near-zero number multiplied by a near-infinity number can give both a near-zero number, a finite number or even an infinite number. Where it falls depends on how close to zero VS how close to infinity. In the case of crit and ISB the tiny increase of ISB uptime is multiplying multiple players' DPS and the result, while not anything huge, quite far from zero as well and it's definitely big enough that you cannot neglect it and get good theorycrafting results. | ||||||||||||
| #2214 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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| #2215 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
Updated the compendium with some patch things. Let me know if you find any mistakes or if something could be cleared up. Next update will include gems, they're on the "to-do" list.
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| #2216 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Bolche |
![]() For exemple if we look at the first table (10% crit, 14% hit) : 16.18 is the dps you gain from 1% hit, while 0.742 is the dps the raid gains from 1 hit rating. | ||||||||||||
| #2217 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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Base (10% Crit/14% Hit): ISB DPS: 6049.3 11% Crit: 6065.5 15% Hit: 6065.3 personal DPS gained of 1% hit over 1% crit previously posted: 1.91 Base (15% Crit/14% Hit): ISB DPS: 6130.4 16% Crit: 6146.7 15% Hit: 6147.3 personal DPS gained of 1% hit over 1% crit previously posted: 2.64 Base (20% Crit/14% Hit): ISB DPS: 6211.9 21% Crit: 6228.3 15% Hit: 6229.7 personal DPS gained of 1% hit over 1% crit previously posted: 3.38 What am I looking at wrong on the spreadsheet? By switching it manually % for % I am still showing 1% Hit > 1% Crit Edit: Bolche, I am getting these numbers from Cell L11 of the Raid ISB Tab | ||||||||||||
| #2218 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
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Set Raid TNS to 1 to include ISB changes in your "Next Stat" Table. Compare cell C40*12.6 to C41*22.08. This conversation has gone on a really long time now considering the size of the variables by raid. There won't be a useful generic answer to this so I'm not sure how productive this is -- everyone should be using the values for their own raid group (with a unique mix of stats per shadow DPSer and number of Locks v SPs) and go from there. | ||||||||||||
| #2219 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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The cells you listed give the amount of damage that the TNS is worth, not the change in Raid ISB DPS. People are stating that the spreadsheet shows that 1% Crit is better than 1% Hit because the DPS increase from the increased ISB uptime, so how do they see that? Last edited by Vlar : 04/01/08 at 6:53 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2220 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #2221 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar | |||||||||||||
| #2222 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #2223 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar | |||||||||||||
| #2224 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
If you wanted JUST the increase from ISB, yes. But the issue was total value to the raid (personal and ISB-contributions) per stat point. That's exactly what 'The Next Stat' section does. You may be trying to make this more difficult than it is.
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| #2225 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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1% Hit provides a personal DPS increase with a > .73% Decrease in ISB uptime. A 20% increase in damage .73% of the time is the only difference in Raid DPS between crit and hit, making it (.2*.0073) .146% of the Raid's Shadow DPS. So if the Raid's Shadow DPS is 5000, the ISB dps increase from 1% crit over 1% hit is 7.3. This would then be added to the personal DPS 1% crit and compared to the personal DPS of 1% hit. Am I on the correct path at least? Edit: Clarification. Last edited by Vlar : 04/01/08 at 8:06 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2226 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vvandort |
As Nether Vortexes are sold for badges and not bound since p2.4 (i.e. anyone can get and trade them pre-raid), [Belt of Blasting] should be added to the list of craftable gear. Too easy to get now, and just too good.
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| #2227 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deuel |
Sunwell question
So i have a question for some of you doing the sunwell. We have recently reached Brutallus in the sunwell, and have a pretty optimal group set up. One of our warlocks at the time is still spec'd ua for this encounter, we have not totally decided if the need for him to go destro is there or not. While doing our attempts we had talked about some ways to up his dps for the encounter with his current spec, so that he wouldn't be to gimped there. So my question is, would a regular dot roation of ua, corruption, immo, and sl be better or just a ua, corr and bolt spam be more beneficial here ?
The World of Warcraft Armory Here is a link to his amory to help reference his gear. I had him try some points in shadow embrace for our Kalecgos video, and atm he's trying the haste offhand to the Orb offhand. He's a real strong aff lock and i think could do well for this fight as this spec (or close to this spec with some possible changes), but is also willing to spec destro if needed. | ||||||||||||
| #2228 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Darkwand3r3r |
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And if you really want some results on dps, then he needs to spec 0/21/40. | ||||||||||||
| #2229 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Fizwidget |
5/5 Devastate will serve you much better on Brutallus than Shadowburn, for starters.
I would also recommend getting 5/5 SE for the raid. The two reasons to take an affliction lock to a raid at T6+ are 5/5 SE and 3/3 Malediction. Rescue a point from Grim Reach to fill up on SE. If you are having healing problems leave him affliction. If you have several shadow casters receiving a benefit from 13% malediction, you may also want to consider keeping an affliction lock on the Brutallus roster. If you are only considering this warlock's personal DPS, than 0/21/40 is the way to go. Affliction DPS is always based on the DPSCT of your DoTs. For affliction, your DoTs will always have a higher DPSCT than shadow bolt, even SL. Affliction locks should always refresh DoTs as they fall off, there is no true "rotation" because of the differences in DoT length. (see first page) | ||||||||||||
| #2230 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
1. Destruction will do more DPS, especially at sunwell gear levels. There's no way around it. And DoT rotations are harder to perform over shadowbolt/lifetap on top of that.
2. Unless your tanks and healers have absolutely no issues, shadow embrace is very useful, and the only real reason to spec affliction. Having an imp out in the tank group and malediction are nice extras but probably not enough to justify the lower DPS of affliction. 5% reduction to boss damage, while harder to actually notice, is actually a lot more useful both for reducing the required healing and effectively increasing the HP of the tank by significant amount (generally more than an imp would). This means drop a point from intensity and shadowburn for a point in shadow embrace and devastation. 3. He could use some easy gear fixes. MSD > 14 spell damage. CSD is better than both for destruction but not for affliction. Same goes for the 51 damage offhand from badges which is better than the haste offhand (remember DoTs don't tick any faster even though you lower the GCD so a noticeable benefit of haste is lost even in 2.4). At the end while the raid may lose a bit of DPS (not as much as his personal DPS loss as malediction is somewhat better than the extra ISBs destruction provides over affliction for most raid setups), but gain a lot of survivability on the tank in return. in 99/100 progression fights it's simply more than worth it, it seems. If your tanks don't need those increases and you're having DPS issues you should most likely just replace a healer with a DPSer... | ||||||||||||
| #2231 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Morwen |
I would spec for Ruin over UA with that gear, easily (say, wowhead 40/0/21). It will result in about 40-50 more personal/raid dps in theory, and in practice it is probably even better because you're less likely to hit your UA max potential because of increased DoT gaps, UA suffering from pushback, and the debuff limit. Don't give up Intensity for Brutallus either, each point there is worth another 30ish dps.
Unless you have an exceptionally shadow-heavy raid, Malediction will not beat the benefits of being Destruction. Malediction is 2.7% above a normal CoS, so assuming about a 300 dps gap between personal affliction and destruction, you'd need well over 11000 shadow dps excluding yourself even before accounting for ISB differences, and that's not going to happen unless you're the 7th shadow user. Malediction is not so much support as it is a talent to make affliction dps tolerable for the one person who's getting Shadow Embrace anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #2232 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
I suppose if a fight is extremely movement-light and pushback-heavy you could drop a point from affliction range talent instead of dropping a point from intensity.
I never said malediction will beat destructions, but the survivability gains on the tank are probably more than worth it unless tank survival/healing/threat on that fight is a lot more trivial than people make it sound. Remember a dead tank causing a wipe is a lot more common than lack of even 300 total raid DPS (and the difference in reality will probably not be as high due to malediction). Heck, 11000 shadow DPS is not that extreme anyway (say 3X 1300DPS SP + 2X 2000 DPS lock + 1600 DPS aff lock give 9500, and with top-end gear it's possible to get higher), but even if you only get 6000 shadow DPS which is less than I'd expect for a sunwell raid that only brings 2XSP and 2Xlock with one of the locks being aff, it already makes up for 150 out of the 300 lost DPS. There's more to it than that though, refer to the spreadsheet to see the exact DPS differences (that also answer your ruin VS UA question). Again I'm not saying malediction will beat destruction in terms of total raid DPS (at least in most realistic cases), but the DPS gain is probably not worth the tank support loss. Just ask your tank/healers what they would give for +700 HP as well as +5.26% effective HP (for physical damage). If multiple people in your raid are losing DPS due to threat it's even more useful as it allows the tank to trade more survivability for more threat, although that shouldn't be the primary issue, but tank death wipes just really suck. Regarding UA VS ruin, go purely by the spreadsheet, but make sure to enter the correct DoT gap you're expecting. That way you won't be able to say "but UA does less than spreadsheet-dps due to DoT-gap"... In fact the default dot-gap on the spreadsheet is 2s which is probably quite higher than reality if you're actually focusing on DPSing to your max, so UA DPS is actually (slightly) under-estimated in my opinion. Remeber it needs to be the average gap you get, not the maximum. At the end if your tank never dies and your healers never have issues healing and nobody in the raid is threat capped *but* there is no way you're doing this fight with 1 less healer, then go ahead and spec destruction instead. If your raid actually meets all of those conditions then destruction would help you get through the fight better than affliction. | ||||||||||||
| #2233 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | burnz68 |
Soothing Kiss
Hey guys, this is a quasi-tanking question, but since it is a warlock ability, and I'm the warlock asking, I'll pose the question here first.
The question is "when should I use Soothing Kiss?" and it is primarily addressed to tanks, since it is a melee attack speed debuff. In particular, I'd like to know when this would help the most, particularly on MH/BT bosses, which is where I'm at for progression. I'm a 5/35/21 and so from my perspective I use a succubus already, but mostly on passive simply for the added damage buffs and the shield of soul link. Since I already have her out, maintaining Soothing Kiss on a boss is quite easy, with rare exceptions like where death and decay spawns and there is so much AOE that she dies too easily to keep her in melee range. Here's the relevant description in the tooltip, for those that may have overlooked it. "decreases melee attack speed by 10% for 10 sec". As far as her mana pool is concerned, I can cast it indefinitely as long as I can keep her alive. A good example of a fight where I'd expect it to be very valuable is Azgalor. An example of a fight where I'd expect it to be useless is Kael, (or any caster-style boss, for that matter). It does take up a debuff slot, but it also gets over-written quickly by stronger debuffs as it is a very low-priority debuff, so I don't think that's a concern for anyone to worry about too much. Thoughts? | ||||||||||||
| #2234 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gumibear |
Soothing Kiss is weaker than Thunderclap and can't stack with it. I wouldn't bother.
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| #2235 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | burnz68 |
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I do know that a druid has nothing equivalent to a Thunderclap, and I'm guessing prot pallies as well. So, if I had one of them tanking, probably not so useless? Last edited by burnz68 : 04/02/08 at 2:58 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2236 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | corsair |
Well in raid scenarios there should probably be a dps warrior responsible for getting TC (and other debuffs) up, but I'm glad you asked your original question, as I searched around for the answer a bit ago and didn't find anything.
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| #2237 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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| #2238 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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I wonder if the debuff would be worth the DPS loss in the beginning of a fight to reduce initial spike damage or a few extra seconds during an enrage. Suffering - Spells - World of Warcraft | ||||||||||||
| #2239 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Akj |
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| #2240 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
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Are you guys even hitting the enrage timer? If so are you doing it consistantly? We carry one affliction lock in our raid for Brut. You can scroll back a few pages and check out the WWS log of our attempts and the one of us killing him. Every lil bit of damage reduction we can get helps us for that fight. So having him for the SE and Mal for the shadow priests is pretty helpful lets us Desto locks DPS pretty much non stop. | ||||||||||||
| #2241 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
You're mixing shadow embrace with malediction's extra mana regen from shadow priests. While shadow embrace is a huge benefit, the extra mp5 you get by giving malediction to the shadow priests is equivalent to like 6 mp5 per warlock... That's quite tiny of a benefit and the last argument I'd bring in favor of having an affliction warlock.
This is supposed to keep things in proportion. Affliction warlocks are great to have, but the reason is not the fact they help the shadow priests regen some more mana for the raid. Last edited by galzohar : 04/03/08 at 12:12 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2242 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
I was talking about the VE we get back lets us lifetap without too much fear of being slashed to death which helps us DPS pretty much non stop and allows the healers to concentrate on other things besides keeping our group up.
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| #2243 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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Shadow Embrace is incredibly useful for progression if you're having issues with tank deaths, which tends to be the number one concern anyway in raids. Especially given the current buff to bosses in Sunwell and how much physical damage they dish out. | ||||||||||||
| #2244 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
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I agree, Brut is definately the Patchwork of TBC.. Unless you've attempted him you wont understand. Every little bit of survivability you can give your tanks the better. Just like everything you can do to increase raid DPS the better. Personally I dropped herbalism for Leatherworking for the drums. Although I didnt have them last week when we downed him it wont hurt having them this week. | ||||||||||||
| #2245 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Parzifal |
some observations and questions
First time poster here... You all have a very valuable collection of information here. Between this and Leulier's spreadsheet, I've learned an awful lot about fine tuning a lock.
First, a question: although there is a lot of discussion about the impact on ISB uptime to a raid's dps, this does not appear to be a particularly painless process via the spreadsheet. Is there a general rule of thumb for this? i.e., in SSC, generally 1% increased ISB uptime -> 20 dps or something of the kind? I'd like to be able to assess my total contribution to the raid more easily. Even a ballpark figure would tell me more than I know now. I have an observation about a realistic casting sequence, something not currently addressed by the spreadsheet. Because being threat-capped is a real problem for me (I'll talk to this more below), I tend to begin fights with CoA, Corruption and Immolate, followed relatively soon by Lifetaps to keep my mana up near 100% so that once the tank firmly establishes aggro, I can spam SB for longer without worry for flying past him. After all, early on, an SB crit for 5-6k is a much larger percentage change in aggro than it is later on. As far as I can tell, while working with a "threat-challenged" tank, this is a good strategy. Any comments? Also, I think it's worth noting if it hasn't already been said, Fire doesn't seem to me to be as viable as shadow in pre-T5 gear levels since +shadow is considerably easier to come by (viz., FSW, Ritssyn's, Dalaran, etc.) Ok, one final question... but first some explanation... Though I enjoy raiding, my six week old daughter doesn't allow it much now. As such, I spend 95% of my time outside of raids and am consequently mired in slightly different issues than I might be with the guild raids. As my +shadow rose over 1200, I've found that most tanks in 5 and 10 man pugs (and even guild runs) are not the aggro-machines that raiding tanks are. As a result, my dps suffers greatly since I have to frequently wait for the tank to build aggro. So my question is this: are there any tactics for 21/40 (other than what I mentioned above) that would mitigate the problem or should I respec to the attractive (and potentially more dps) 7/43/11 demo or something similar? Mind you, I'm most interested in non-raids, so if you all don't mind the brief diversion from raid theorycrafting, I'd appreciate some more generally applicable spec advice. Thanks in advance! | ||||||||||||
| #2246 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | LockApologist |
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5 mans are not about make dps/efficiency. More about coordination. | ||||||||||||
| #2247 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
For 5-mans if your tank can't generate a lot of threat at least team up with people who help you kite the mobs (rogue stuns/crip poison, frostshock, frostbolt or just frost nova/blastwave/DB etc etc). With good enough DPS you should be able to intentionally pull aggro knowing the mob will die before it gets to you or you'll be able to run away from it without dying while others are killing it. Remember when something doesn't need to be tanked not only you can do more DPS, but so can the other group memebers, if they're actually good enough to do more DPS than the tank can generate threat of course. Worst case the instances are easy enough for slow DPS to be good enough to clear it - other than pulling aggro and killing the mob without a tank there's absolutely nothing you can do to help it (other than soulshattering every 5 minutes...).
While multi-dotting with affliction sounds really nice for 5-mans, the fact is it gets that much less effective to pull aggro and nuke more than 1 target at a time. Not to mention the focused mob generally takes significantly less time to die than the time it takes DoTs to tick off, even worse for the DoTs that were applied last. Felguard may be a sweet alternative for being threat efficient but will not nescessary help your cause over destruction. In 10-mans there's no way out of it. Bad tank = bad DPS = slow run and even wipes if the group is bad enough. Run 10-mans with good players of face the concenquences, there's no way around it. Fire is indeed pretty pointless at FSW gear levels maybe unless you're willing to respec spellfire but even then the raid ISB losses may be bigger than the DPS increase of fire depending on your raid and gear. The spreadsheet already counts ISB uptime into the part that tells you how good it would be to add 1 point of each stat (TNS - To Next Stat) if you enable it to use raid ISB model and add raid ISB DPS to TNS. If you just change your crit chance in your base stats part it won't include the raid ISB DPS in your own so you'll have to just go look at the ISB uptime change and multiply it by 0.2 of the shadow DPS of the rest of the shadow users in the raid (your own extra ISB DPS is already accounted for). And obviously crit's effect on ISB depends quite significantly on what other shadow users are in your raid - their DPS, the warlock:SP ratio, and warlocks' spec and crit chance matter. Just remember when you parse their DPS on WWS look at your own DPS as well - WWS DPS is usually lower than theorycrafted DPS but the spreadsheet requires you to enter their theorycrafted DPS (assuming they lose as much DPS as you to skill/movement/etc issues). You could also multiply your own DPS by the inverse of that factor but that would be harder to actually do on the spreadsheet. This makes me think it would be nice to add an option on the spreadsheet that would take your input of "WWS DPS" value and assume the reason it's lower than the theorycrafted DPS is because you only spend X% of the time actually casting, and calculate TNS accordingly. | ||||||||||||
| #2248 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Clandestine |
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| #2249 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Lite |
Hi, I was wondering what my warlocks spell hit cap would be if I only had 1/5 in suppression.
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| #2250 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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If you find you're consistently going over the tank's threat, I'd suggest any of the following. - get a better tank - teach your current tank how to play - on trash: make sure to divide your damage over tanked targets. Spam CoA on all offtanked ones before bolting. - make sure the tank's not overgeared and therefore not getting rage, have him adjust his gear accordingly - use coR - Misdirect / Prayer of Mending / Earth Shield - go demonology with imp and get the -20% threat reduction - just wait a bit longer. Unless you risk enrage timer, you simply shouldn't risk pulling aggro. - Enchant Cloak: Subtlety ![]()
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Here's a quick overview of my opinions on the subject: Destro: Destro nukes things, hard. You need to be careful with aggro as a consequence. When the party lends itself to it, I prefer a "don't tank skull" strategy, where on each pull the group focus fires on one untanked target while the tank grabs everything else. When done right, the target dies too fast to be able to do real damage. Works in low level pugs and in heroics alike. Death Coil, Shadowburn, Succubus Seduction and tailor nets work nice with this. Not super for soloing as longevity is an issue, resulting in a bit of downtime. Affliction: Affliction excels in pvp and for solo grinding. It is just not very effective in parties -my main reason for disliking the play style- due to the points made by previous posters. Typically groups will try to do maximum burst damage and affliction sorely lacks this. If you're going for a 5 man spec I'd recommend against heavy affliction. Demonology: Demonology is all about having a demon out (or sacrificing it) and making good use of that. Good demon selection and management is what separates the good from the average demonologists. Especially the succubus is notoriously hard to use effectively, and will require good micro management. There are multiple good ways of going demo for 5mans, from all out Felguard to any form of hybrid in between. Any sensible spec will serve. Last edited by Arelenda : 04/03/08 at 7:27 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2251 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Noree |
Quick question...
Taking into consideration how much of a buff Spell Haste got in 2.4, Say you are a Warlock in a raid environment spec'd 0/21/40 with about 30% crit, 1550 shadow damage and 16% haste rating (fully raid buffed, full consumables, etc.) What would be more preferable... A gain of 87 spell damage or a gain of 56 haste rating (approximately 3.50%) | ||||||||||||
| #2252 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | • frmorrison | |||||||||||||
| #2253 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arnath |
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Please read existing threads before posting. | ||||||||||||
| #2254 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Lite |
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Sorry, I must've misunderstood.. | ||||||||||||
| #2255 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Ralyc |
hi, just a quick question
as a classic shadow-destro lock what increase the dps more.. the 2 12 spelldmg from enchanter or using drums of battle on cooldown ? | ||||||||||||
| #2256 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos | |||||||||||||
| #2257 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
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Your question was not worded correctly. Your actual hit cap wont change with 1/5 suppression. The cap is always 10% for affliction 16% for destro. I think what you meant to ask was what will my hit rating be with 1/5 suppresion, which is 2%. | ||||||||||||
| #2258 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arnath |
Like the above poster said, your question was worded oddly. With 1/5 Suppression, you have 2% to hit with dots so you need another 14% from items. This is something close to 168 hit rating (it's a little more than 168, I just used 12 hit rating = 1% hit as an approximation where really it's 12.something).
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| #2259 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Parzifal |
Thanks to Arelenda and the others for your thoughtful replies to my questions and comments (except for one person, obviously.. lol). As has been typical here, some of the insights given were new to me and will be useful. I'll definitely respec demo now and try it out.
I do have one more follow-on question: what's the best spec / item choices for farming? Since I was 21/40, I've been sacrificing my voidwalker and have very much enjoyed the total lack of downtime that comes with it, spending about 7 seconds on each mob (2-3 SBs, wait for the last SB to land, if none of them crit then Shadowburn). Is there a more efficient way of doing this? With two instant DoTs and a mini-tank that follows me around in the form of my Felguard, I suspect that x/41+/x will be considerably better since multiple mobs may be taken on simultaneously. Farming in my mind is all about speed, so if there's a faster way to take things down, I'd be very interested to hear it. | ||||||||||||
| #2260 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Mirya |
What type of mod is everyone using to keep track of curse and DOT timers these days? I used to use DoTimer for a long time, and it was great. But it hasn't been updated for the 2.4 patch. Are there any reliable DOT timers that are still being regularly updated?
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| #2261 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Faldrath |
I still use DoTimer, actually. At least for me, it still works well in 2.4 (I don't use all of its modules, though, only DoTimer and Cooldowns).
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| #2262 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
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| #2263 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
ClassTimer works great for me.
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| #2264 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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It'll be spawn rate, mob type and gear dependant, obviously. With the current end game gear available (including MgP which has ridiculously good loot), most things outside die so fast that you spend most of your time moving from one target to the next. | ||||||||||||
| #2265 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cohren |
Forte Warlock, even keeps track of other Warlock's ISB proc's.
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| #2266 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nicarras |
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Your best bet would be to spec UA for your 5/10 mans and that way juggling dots and random SB filler should keep you a little more manageable on your threat issues. Heck even PVE felguard would work, granted PVE felguard you still want a decent amount crit, which you are lacking. You did find a problem though, it is very easy to scale our damage very quickly at 70. Its just all the other stats you need to work on now....hit/crit/stam/int, thats basically all you gain until you start getting into haste gear. I remember waiting for tanks to 'catch up' in gear so I wouldnt be so threat capped...it sucked, but they do catch up | ||||||||||||
| #2267 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | bigbell |
Shadow or Fire?
Hi guys,
Im having trouble with the spreadsheet i think. I understood from reading posts here that Shadow was still best for endgame warlocks. However, the spreadsheet seems to be telling me something different, incinerate spam is beating shadowbolt by a large margin. Around 200+dps more. I guess my question is this. Am I doing something completely wrong when entering data into the spreadsheet? Or are others getting similar results? I have noticed on WWS parses on brutallus etc that there seems to be more warlocks going with fire. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #2268 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gumibear |
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Raid compositions like 3 warlocks with 2 shadow priests still warrant just 1 warlock using shadow bolt for better raid DPS via ISB. | ||||||||||||
| #2269 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | ninielin |
200 + dps difference? mm wouldn't a SB build scale better anyway? ( haste/ + dmg?)
edit: I only get around 30 dps in favor of fire using the spreadsheet ( full BT/hyjal). Sounds like you forgot to change your pet when you switched the filler spell and kept imp for the shadow build. Last edited by ninielin : 04/05/08 at 5:30 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2270 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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Make sure you're enabling 5/5 scorch from fire mages (or otherwise why would you consider fire in the firstplace...) and use proper ISB modeling (raid ISB option and fill the stats of the shadow users in your raid in the raid ISB tab and check how much ISB DPS they lose when you swtich to fire). I think the default is no improved scorch on target in the spreadsheet. | ||||||||||||
| #2271 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | clavarnway |
The dps difference between Fire and Shadow Destruction on the spreadsheet may not be mirrored in game play - Shadow Destruction, you just spam Shadow Bolt to match spreadsheet DPS, for Fire Destruction you have to make sure Immolate always hits as soon as it expires, and every Incinerate that hits has an Immolate on the target when it hits. Doesn't sound like much, but I raided as Affliction for a long ass time, and I'm very familiar with how being human can reduce dps from the spreadsheet.
Has anybody had any experience speccing Fire and trying it out, and seeing actual results? I would like to see how people are doing compared to their spreadsheet DPS as Fire. | ||||||||||||
| #2272 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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I did a ZA run as shadow destro, and since we had no shadow priests the next day, I tried it as fire destro. In both runs we got a boar mount. I did somewhat less good with fire, but I can easily attribute it to me not being used to the spec. Another factor in ZA is trash. Having to start with Immolate is very inefficient on stuff that dies in seconds. I'm mentioning it because I thought that since Fire Destro can go both Shadow and Fire, I figured it'd be more versatile in 5/10mans where one of those is usually gimped due to no SP or Fire Mage present. Fire is not effective on things that are not worth Immolating. It is however, not trivial to time your spells around Immolate. Where I used to be able to focus on timing my SB perfectly and watching what's going on with the fight, as Fire I had to try and time my Incinerates around my Immolate. Considering the dynamic haste in our ZA run (3 drum people and 3 shamans for Heroism) this wasn't that easy. Another factor is gear. I had Soulfrost and was using green +59 fire damage boots from the AH to replace [Boots of the Shifting Nightmare]. In short, my experience: - Playing fire effectively is harder than using Shadow effectively. On farm content this is hardly an issue though. - It is a major pain to compare them fairly as it requires some regearing. - Shadow and Fire are decently close, which shows good design on Blizzard's part. I'm currently trying to rewrite ShadowSeer for 2.4 so I can measure ISB uptime in game accurately. This would help us decide what's better. For now I think both specs are definitely viable and reasonably close no matter what. Even if Fire turns out to be higher overall dps, Shadow definitely has some advantages that would mitigate that. | ||||||||||||
| #2273 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Well fire vs shadow was already discussed fairly heavily in the other thread (another spreadsheet thread), and basically concluded there are very few circumstances in which having a fire lock is better, especially if you don't want to spam flame caps. To summarize..
Fire Pro - Higher Personal Dps Con - CoE always has to be up no matter how many fire mages, thus you always need atleast 3 locks. - Extra debuff slots for immolates - Numbers are going to be lower than spreadsheet due to no 100% immolate uptime unless you had more than 1 immo casting lock. - Sucks if you have an affliction lock and a shadow destro lock, because 1.13 CoS will make shadow better - Having to farm/buy flame caps - Decreased isb uptime means that if you have 3 destro locks, probably only 1 can/should go fire - No Netherprotection or Soul Leech - paying for a sunfire enchant and getting a new cloak - Less mana returned for shadowpriests due to less isb uptime - There is more fire resistant/immune bosses (I know this hardly matters) - You have to press more than 2 and watch DoTimer - Higher Threat Generation Last edited by Flamingcloud : 04/05/08 at 11:49 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2274 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | ninielin |
Well with every single debuff on the target, full bt/hyjal set ( forgot to change sunfire/soulfrost first time) as well as most raid buffs ( aside from no shaman elem) I get 2360 dps as shadow ( casting CoE 3 locks in our usual raid setup) and 2497 with fire. Considering you won't get as much due to the human factor, I don't really think its worth it unless your raid has almost no warlock/spriest.
Running with 3 locks and 2 spriest fire is definitely not a viable option. edit: the fire number include 1.13 CoE which in practice isn't really going to happens. using 1.1 I get 2395 dps I.E next to no dps boost ( and a fair dps loss when you consider ISB ) Last edited by ninielin : 04/05/08 at 12:29 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2275 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
Given all this I think it's fair to assess that with a high amount of spriests/warlocks in the raid (3+), it's probably best to stick with Shadow. While additional shadow destro locks will have diminishing returns on ISB uptime, that is compensated by the fact it affects more sources. Upping ISB uptime by 5% for 5 people is the same as upping it by 25% for just one. Until given solid evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume Shadow wins through scaling better with extra shadow users.
They require significantly different gear choices. Fire destro will see a lot less benefit on crit gear, probably wanting to focus more on haste after capping hit. Not to mention school specific enchants and items. Assuming two affliction warlocks is not realistic, so you can have either 13% CoE or 13% CoS. my conclusion: the difference is not that high and dependent on gear and raid setup, but with high amounts of Shadow Users, shadow will win out in overall dps and synergy. | ||||||||||||
| #2276 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | PSGarak |
It's basically dependent on the ratio of shadow priests to total shadow casters, not the number of shadow casters overall. If you have no shadow priests, and enough warlocks that an ISB proc won't last the full 12 seconds anyways, uptime becomes extremely resilient to adding more warlocks: adding one with the raid-average crit has 0 effect, and adding one with lower crit chance will lower it. When you add in shadow priests, you now have shadow casters that eat more charges than they put up, so having more casters that put them up will actually affect uptime (this assumes they cast mind blast and shadow word: death).
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| #2277 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | jendead |
99% lurker here, but I've been having a hard time figuring out how to adjust my gear (yes, I use the spreadsheet). So far, my biggest problem has been trying to balance around +hit, and a few little quirks here and there.
As my armory will point out, I'm still using a [Neltharion's Tear] and glove socket for hit.. I know this is bad. I have a few items in the bank that I can swap around: [Blue Suede Shoes], [Quagmirran's Eye], and a crapton of badges for an Icon or phase 3 stuff. The next few items in my future are: Malefic belt or boots, new Eng helm, or alc stone. Anyway, my question is trinket related, because I think I can figure the other stuff out on my own. A few pages back, someone posted how the Icon is known to be better than the Eye.. but in the spreadsheet, the Eye beats the Icon by 5dps, and the Alchemist stone by 11dps. Kind of disheartening, as I've been working on SSO rep but it doesn't even seem worth it. Why is the Icon better? Is it due to being able to control the click effect? Is the Stone seriously that inferior to the Eye? I don't know if I should just blindly follow the DPS number in the spreadsheet and pick the highest possible combination or not. I also haven't found a clear answer on how having 2 clickable trinkets will work (AFAIK, using one activates a CD on the other, but only for the duration of the effect?). It seems like a really obvious thing that I should know, but I'd rather not buy the Icon and find out I can't use it.. or that I should have just switched the Eye in Thanks for any advice, this thread is like my bible :p | ||||||||||||
| #2278 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
When comparing items with procs I would carefully verify the proc is properly modeled. It had been tested on these forums (not by me!) already that quag's eye has a 45s hidden cooldown which isn't listed on wowhead. So if you just model it based on the wowhead data it'll look a lot more powerful than it's supposed to be. Unless there's some mistake here, the eye should lose out clearly (but not by a huge margin as far as I remember) to the icon and darkmoon card, not to mention hex shrunken head, so shoot for those 2 of those 3 trinkets until you can get your hands on a skull of gul'dan.
As for nelthalion's tear, it's so bad it's worth gemming hit just so you don't have to use it. It's at a similar level to a scryer's bloodgem - both of these items don't really need to be used due to how easy it is to gem hit insetad. The day you get a skull of gul'dan of course you can regem back to spell damage. Hopefully you don't have +12s in all your sockets yet | ||||||||||||
| #2279 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Carnate |
Quagmirran's Eye shows up stronger due to the spread sheet adding ISB damage from the crit. Icon is better personal dps but may fall behind on raid dps. I would just save up for skull instead of going for Icon.
At your gear level you should not be using Tear or blue trinkets, as said already gemming for it is best. The reason you fall behind at hit is that big goose egg on the staff. But it is a good reason. | ||||||||||||
| #2280 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
That's exactly how it works. I personally am looking for a second trinket that doesn't have an on use cause I find annoying. Currently using ZA trinket and the Icon. As far the advice, I'd definitely say the Icon is better, but also consider the new one from MGT, depending on your spec.
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| #2281 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nas |
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Secondly, my guild is going to be working on Brutallus for the first time tonight - we only have two Warlocks attending, one of which is going to be in the MT group as Affliction, and only 1 Shadow Priest, on the other side is two Fire Mages, which makes Fire Destro with CoE the obvious choice. To be honest this is the first time I've given Fire Destro a serious go in a raid since the Karazhan days, so I figured I would ask what other Fire Locks have been doing on Brutallus, have you been giving priority to Immolate over Incinerate and casting it whenver it's about to run out (this is assuming someone else is keeping up Immolate anyway, so the only reason you'd cast it is for its damage, not the boost it gives Incinirate) - or have you just been Incinerate spamming and refreshing Immolate whenever you felt it was falling off? Hours of Dr Boom somehow gave me the impression that straight up Incinerate spamming with another lock keeping up Immolate is better DPS, but I thought I'd ask people who have actually put this into practice. Another thing is what I have been hearing about Brutallus having high resistance to Fire - is it Resistant enough to make having Spell Penetration to cloak on my "fire cloak" a DPS boost? Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #2282 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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| #2283 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nas |
Yeah that is what surprised me - I knew that Immo was better DPCT, however as I said I spent a fair bit of time on Dr. Boom and the results were in favor of Incinerate - maybe it was due to the DPM when I was not raid buffed at all, perhaps it has something to do with Incinerate's superior scaling with crit. I am sure I had 100% immolate uptime, without clipping any of them along with optimal lifetap timing, still Incinerate won in the end. Has anyone else noticed that? Or should I expect it to change with raid buffs (although I don't see how, more crit and damage would further favor Incinerate with Ruin and SnF).
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| #2284 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | jendead |
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Also, we use EPGP which is not conducive to saving up for a specific item.. not going to threadjack with my thoughts about it though. :o Me getting a skull is practically a guild joke at this point.. we have bad luck with those things (popped 3, but 1 retired and 1 gquit already) Last edited by jendead : 04/06/08 at 1:54 AM. Reason: forgot something :o | ||||||||||||
| #2285 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Vazu |
I realize with spreadsheets being available and so forth that I risk being stoned to death for asking this, but here goes.
We currently raid with 2 shadow Priests and on many nights 1 affliction Warlock and 3 destro Warlocks. With that much shadow damage being thrown around, between ISB uptime and so forth, I'm curious about the new gems. I have an opportunity to regem all of my gear very soon. I'm getting rid of the crit/spellpower stuff and I can't decide basically between 10 spell haste gems in all of my yellow slots or 5 haste/6 spellpower. The math says 10 haste, but I'm curious to hear from the community here. Is there a good arguement for either based on raid composition? Basically it's 110 spell haste or 66 spellpower/55 spell haste. Is the 110 option better for a raid with 2 shadow Priests, an affliction Warlock and 3 destro Warlocks? (I also have a Skull of Gul'dan and I'm a LW with Drums of Battle. If that matters in terms of hitting the 1.5 second GCD wall for spamming Shadowbolt.) Last edited by Vazu : 04/06/08 at 5:04 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2286 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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Sunwell loot has an abundance of haste rating, and not a whole lot more of +dmg. Haste does have some negative scaling, and I figure going for more haste = more lifetaps, and I'd rather avoid that. Is it worth regemming everything? Probably wouldn't use guild gems, but if you have badges, knock yourself out. | ||||||||||||
| #2287 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gumibear |
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| #2288 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | • frmorrison |
I am doing 5 haste 6 damage for yellows (on new gear, keeping the crit/damage ones I have now), I wouldn't do 10 haste because the increase in number of Life Taps, damage per mana is important as well.
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| #2289 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Eph | |||||||||||||
| #2290 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos | |||||||||||||
| #2291 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | TommiHelm |
Hi. I wasnt sure if I should post this in the spreadsheet thread or here, but I hope this is right. The questions are really more in general about haste and destruction.
I'm a regular 0/21/40 warlock and my gear is mostly mostly Karazhan (T4) level with a few SSC/TK pieces, like the T5 shoulders which is what my question is about. We got a couple of Mantle of Nimble Thought patterns when we tried farming some Hyjal trash tonight. I plotted my gear into the spreadsheet (with gems and every buff I use in raids), and I was a bit surprised that the T5 shoulders came out at 4-5 DPS higher than the Hyjal pattern. I can see the pattern have less potential stats (less crit rating mainly, and of course 2 sockets less), but shouldnt that much haste rating be really good for a destruction warlock? I assume the spreadsheet is right of course, but would it still be wise for the warlocks in the community to make these for the future? Will they be better once we start getting T6 quality gear in other slots? I always assumed Tier 6 would fill the shoulder slot eventually. Cheers. | ||||||||||||
| #2292 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
That about sums it up flamingcloud. I don't know why people are still adamant about fire spec, it is 100x more difficult to play due to both reasons you can and can't control.
Tommihelm the T5 shoulders are better because you need the +hit. Generally you'd only use Nimble thought once you are hitcapped, say trading the T5 or T6 shoulders for them (but really no one uses the shoulders of nimble thought). | ||||||||||||
| #2293 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | TommiHelm |
Ah of course. I entered the gear I use on trash, not what I use on bosses. I do have the gear to be hit capped on bosses even if I swap the shoulders for Nimble Thought. I tried that in the spreadsheet and get a 20 DPS increase from swapping to Nimble Thought actually now.
So then it is worth making them I guess? But you say noone really uses them? So the "optimal" way to go on T6 level is using haste in other slots instead? Cheers. | ||||||||||||
| #2294 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Anedris |
Basically, if your guild is planning ahead they will have noticed that they need 150 hearts of darkness to beat Shahraz (not literally, some people can get by with less than cap, or can scrounge a lot of greens, but that's a good mark to shoot for). This means that you won't have any spare hearts for a long time, and by the time you do t6 shoulders will be just around the corner (plus the ones from Anetheron will be available - unsure how they compare).
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| #2295 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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The only thing that will provide a major difference to you at your gear level is the 4p T6 set bonus. Anything else will be small upgrades (that combined make a difference, obviously). Unfortunately, the T6 piece in MH/BT aren't that good by themselves. | ||||||||||||
| #2296 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
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| #2297 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Well I have 165 haste atm, and I only lifetapped on our Brutallus kill 6 times, and it would have been less if my spriest didn't die at 20%.. Thats a bad reason for not doing 10haste.. Also lionseye are easier to get then pyrestone atm in my guild anyways.
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| #2298 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Painton |
I had two quick questions:
First about warlock spell rotation ( yes I read the former pages) Today I found I got more dps as affliction by using Cos>UA>corr>immo>SL the entire raid rather than use CoA. Is this a poor choice? my spec can be found here : The World of Warcraft Armory too add, I don't have maxed hit, it's sitting at 155 atm. Would this also be a large part of the dps lost when using CoA? There was only one other destrolock in the raid. Second, is there anyway I would be able to stay affliction going into endgame raids? Or does the gear scale too poorly with affliction? Thanks. | ||||||||||||
| #2299 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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Affliction is viable, given those two talents. Use 13% CoS on everything the raid is dpsing, CoA is ok on offtanked stuff if you like. Last edited by Arelenda : 04/07/08 at 4:26 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2300 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Parzifal |
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According to the spreadsheet, UA spec is about a +5 dps change from 21/40... but that assumes perfect DoT timing and all DoTs going to the last tick, right? In practice, when I was UA specced, my dps just wasn't good at all -- and the spec isn't good for farming or PVP, imho. I switched to 7/43/11 demo this weekend and was blown away by how superior the spec is for farming. I can literally send the felguard in, do the two instant cast DoTs while I'm looking for another target, repeat, and then clean up the loot after 3-4 creatures. For the first time in a long time, I need bigger bags for all the junk that drops! The raw dps isn't really that much better -- but my dots and pet are still doing damage while I'm looking for targets and cleaning up loot -- making the spec MUCH faster for farming. In fact, amusingly, I end up using Drain Life at times since it ticks for about the same as a netherweave bandage, and as such, keeps me from having to stop to heal after the fight. It's about the same dps in an instance from what I've seen so far, though far better on trash and much easier to control threat with on bosses. The only disadvantage as noted here before is that micromanaging the pet is important -- but it's also fun (being a shadowbolt turret is only so entertaining). The worst issue I have now with it is replenishing my demon's mana - the felguard goes through mana very quickly. Although I have 1/3 mana feed, he needs mana more often than I need to lifetap. Any suggestions? As a final comedic note - it's amazing how people squirm after someone posts a dps meter to raid chat, isn't it? | ||||||||||||
| #2301 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | clavarnway |
From what I've gathered by talking to people who've been Demonology, they just summon a new Felguard when the old one is OOM. They also have 1 point in mana feed, to keep his mana up during raids.
If your Destruction DPS via the spreadsheet is only 5 dps less than UA dps on the spreadsheet, you're better off going Destruction (based on my experience). Human error plays a pretty big part in bringing UA down from the spreadsheet DPS, though that amount varies from person to person and encounter to encounter. | ||||||||||||
| #2302 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rutiene |
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| #2303 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nicarras |
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Although be careful with trying to fine some 'perfect' spec that allows you to PvE/PvP/Grind and do all of them really well. It doesnt really exist...especially if you play your Lock a lot, 'cause you'll see the differences in spec's even more. PvP I'll spec SL/SL or Felguard/Sburn PvE I'll spec shadow or fire dest Grinding I can pull off in my PvE spec well enough (even better if I two box with my priest behind me), but if I want to power solo grind...Affliction is the best. As for the mana problems of your pet...I'm not sure, I've never really raided with a Felguard, I guess you could switch the spec around to have 2/3 Feed. Aside from that are you just leaving all his spells on autocast? | ||||||||||||
| #2304 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Parzifal |
Two good things here: Il'l have to try resummoning the felguard after he's OOM and yes, I have been leaving his spells on autocast (I didn't think about either of these things). After using the quick-summon talent once, though, I wonder if it's really faster to resummon or just to tap and bandage. As for leaving his spells on autocast, this is probably a noobish mistake for my first time with demo. Are there any that I can leave off that would make a big difference without adversely affecting his dps/utility?
Nicarras, you're right about there not being a panacea spec... I really just want something that I can use at least for raid/instance and farming work without having to respec. Now that I think about it, it's been so long since I was heavy aff, it probably is great for a similar kind of grind that demo is good for (though I wonder if blueberry's toughness is a problem since the Felguard can take hits from 4 mobs for a little while without dying). | ||||||||||||
| #2305 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nicarras |
Yeah when I grind as Aff I grind with an Imp out and drain tank like 4-5 mobs, tada dead.
Intercept you can turn off...so when you send him it hes not doing anything, plus you really only need that stun in pvp/grinding. Was Felguard Cleave fixed in the patch in regards to breaking CC? I havent spec'd that way since the patch. | ||||||||||||
| #2306 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
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| #2307 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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At the end nobody uses it because of heart cost and the fact you're going to need 4pcT6, and at least pre-2.4 you could only get away with 1 non-T6 piece, and having the chest from vashj, legs from archimonde or helm from illidan are all going to serve you better and require you to wear T6 shoulders anyway. Even after 2.4 you can simply use more than just 1 of those 3 items and still use T6 which will be better than using nimble thought. So save the hearts for shadow resist and once that is done with use them for bracers of nible thought and other more useful items. ![]()
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| #2308 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
Dot gap in the spreadsheet is at 1 second. Can someone explain what exactly dot gap is? I've always assumed it was the mathematical model of "human" error causing dots to not be reapplied immediately after they end.
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| #2309 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
DoTs don't only delay because of human error, they also delay becuase of shadowbolt's casting time, other DoTs' casting time and the GCD.
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| #2310 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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That would be easy to test with the spread sheet, I did a quick test on the T6 level gear, lowered the hit til I hit 202 with the T5 shoulders, and then switched to the haste ones, regemming with same quality gems (blue for blue, purple for purple) and found a 5 dps difference. This is with BT quality gems in the T5, since those should be widely available soon. With out regemming, I saw a 17 dps difference. If we had realized how much the hearts would be needed and how crappy the drop rate really is, I never would have made them, but they are technically an upgrade (Although, if you wanted to make a spell haste set for fun, they would work well). | ||||||||||||
| #2311 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
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| #2312 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Jadari |
Hi there =)
I have used the spreadsheet extensively, but I still have some questions. 0/21/40. I see all the Sunwell warlocks using pure 10 haste gems, however, my spreadsheet says Rune Crimson Spinel is worth 10.35 DPS Reckless Pyrestone is worth 10.31 Quick Lionseye is worth 10.26 I'm just entering BT, but have the absolute best before that, I think. Why does my SS say the opposite of what I'm always told / always observe people using. The same people telling me to use +10 Haste tell me to use the spreadsheet, which tells me NOT to use +10 haste. Also, should I be using Forceful (haste/stamina) gems instead of Glowing gems now? For socket bonuses. Last edited by Jadari : 04/07/08 at 5:31 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2313 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
Affliction builds live by their DoTs, as for 1.5s cast UA/corruption are in the 4k damage area, but can only be casted every 18 seconds. Immolate and SL are also good damage per cast time but can't be casted often. Your shadowbolts are significantly less DPCT.
So taking it to the extreme, if you only have time to UA/corruption, affliction will definitely always win. If you just stand still at all time, at all reasonably high gear levels, destruction wins hands down. Therefore there's a certain amount of movement in a fight that would be the break-even point between affliction and destruction. As it seems though, at the higher gear levels at least, that the movement is simply not nearly intensive enough to hurt destruction enough to go under affliction's DPS. And at the lower gear levels affliction warlocks seem to simply not be skilled enough to take full advantage of their DPS (you hear every so often that kara/gruul-farming warlock that gained 200-300 DPS by switching to destruction even though for his gear the specs should be more or less equal DPS). | ||||||||||||
| #2314 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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The difference isn't that big in the first place, so you can see how a different gear setup would alter the relative values. I haven't checked this out myself, but I'm guessing that'd be the answer. | ||||||||||||
| #2315 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Jadari |
Hmm, that makes a ton more sense. I'm confuzzled as to what I should do still, perhaps I'll just stick with 10 haste.
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| #2316 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | LockApologist |
In general, the relative value of crit, haste, and damage fluctuates based on your current gear. However, as you enter BT/MH, Lionseye will likely be a low demand gem, while spinels and pyrestones are much higher demand. When you've been farming for months (and when your realm gets the anvil), it won't really matter.
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| #2317 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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Perhaps I am blind, but I see that your posting toon is a warrior, and I don't see a link to your warlock. A view of your armory, while narrow would provide a better understanding than "but have the absolute best before that, I think." I would say go by the spreadsheet, it should start leaning more towards haste as +spell damage increases. | ||||||||||||
| #2318 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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No offense, but I think you're losing sight of the big picture here. Raid dps is in the 10-20k ballpark, and you're fussing over 0.1dps difference. I understand wanting to min-max, but if you're looking to boost raid success there's probably other areas that could be improved. | ||||||||||||
| #2319 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Christian |
130% Aggro-Rule
Hey guys, i have a question concerning the 130% aggro-rule and bt/mh/sunwell-bosses. As of now, my dps is severely crippled by my raid not allowing me to go over the 100% aggro-line, which, of course, the tank holds. Now i know that you don't get the boss attacking you as long as you don't go over 130% of the tanks aggro, however, my raidlead insists that you still make the boss use it's special abilities in a different way when having between 101% and 129% aggro. an example would be azgalor, where the boss-tank could get this doom-like curse which kills you instantly after some seconds. i highly doubt that.
now my question is this: am i right, that you could go right up to the 130% line and still nothing changes regarding boss, tank and special abilities (let's put bloodboil aside)? if not, which encounters need you to stay below the 100% aggro of the tank? thanks for your help! | ||||||||||||
| #2320 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Anthraxx |
Mentioned gems are very close in terms of DPS, but I think you're overlooking one more thing.
After certain amount of haste your latency (faster casts -> more gaps between them) and mana (more casts -> higher mana consumption -> possibly more tapping) might be a significant factor of your dps. I'd say go 12 dmg wherever you can | ||||||||||||
| #2321 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Fafhrd |
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(However there are some encounters where you might suddenly find yourself in melee range of the boss, and then it can be very bad to be above 110%.) | ||||||||||||
| #2322 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Aphex- |
Affliction DPS
Due to the great mix/max efforts that the challenges of Sunwell face our raids, particularly Brutallus, I've taken it upon myself to spec as our guild's affliction warlock, as the benefits of Malediction + Shadow Embrace outweigh (IMO) the benefits of additional DPS from the standard destro bulid. Self sustainability is also a perk, as being to Drain Life for +1000/sec at times is invaluable. Having been disappointed in the amount of DPS an affliction warlock could do with a UA spec while remaining in a tank group with zero synergy(for imp, part of our strategy to max tank HP), I chose to try out a different spec and was surprised at the results.
38/2/21, based on the old-school SM/RUIN builds, takes all the affliction goodies (Malediction, 5/5 Embrace, Dark Pact), along with Ruin and 2/3 improved imp. While my gear at the moment was sub-optimal for the spec (wrong meta, gimp boots), I was able to pull off higher than I expected DPS. WWS: Wow Web Stats My question to Sunwell warlocks with an affliction spec: Have you had more success with a UA build or one similar to my own? What kind of DPS numbers should I be aiming for on Brutallus as affliction? If this has been answered before, or can be answered with the spreadsheet then sorry, but I'm very bad at those kind of things. | ||||||||||||
| #2323 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Shagaire |
That's the same spec i used on our first kill but I'm gemmed all haste instead of damage.
Wow Web Stats The one issue we did have was dots being pushed off during our first few tries so i don't really know if a UA spec would work so well in a DPS race fight. | ||||||||||||
| #2324 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Parzifal |
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| #2325 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Chaley |
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| #2326 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2327 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
It's fine if people have similar versions. As far as threat is concerned, most fights involve some sort of gimmick that makes it difficult to even get up to the tank's threat. On some fights where there is an ability that ignores the tank, I'm wary of going above 100%, but the rest you should be good to go. The only two I worry about are Teron and Azgalor (which isn't normally a problem since you get silenced).
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| #2328 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | calisti |
Omen is fairly reliable if the entire raid updates just before raid start time. We've been doing this every raid night for the past week, and it works like a charm. Having everyone on the same version of Omen and Threat-2.0 fixes MOST of the quirkiness with the mod. Yes, its somewhat annoying to do this every raid night, but its worth it.
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| #2329 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Sardaukar |
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| #2330 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Morwen |
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One more thing, the WWS doesn't show imp damage, pets should be immune to Brutallus's abilities and are thus safe to let attack. | ||||||||||||
| #2331 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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Bosskillers says that Teron Gorefiends Shadow of Death only ignores the highest on the aggro list, is this incorrect? | ||||||||||||
| #2332 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
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I was gonna say imp would die to meteor slash but I guess you could just park it behind Brutallus, so that would add a solid 100-150 dps to the affliction bitch? (well maybe less when the imp runs OOM) And you wouldnt be able to use dark pact in that case...tradeoffs. Our aff warlock (40/0/21, in DPS group with ele sham) did ~1600 DPS. Also Vlar, we regularly have mages/warlocks pass 100% threat on fights like Teron and never have the tank get the spell cast on him. So I don't know if it really matters. | ||||||||||||
| #2333 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2334 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
regarding Omen: yes, I hope it'll be fixed soon. It's annoying as hell. I'll try the updating thing.
regarding 130% treshold: As far as I know, the only boss where you can NOT go over 100% is Prince, and even there I'm not sure that's not been fixed. All other boss you can go up to 130% theoretically (although that'd be pushing it, I'd use Life Tap or Soulshatter when I reach 115% and up) About 38/2/21: Interesting, can you post it so I can include it in the Compendium? Update: if it wasn't already on there. Embarrassing! | ||||||||||||
| #2335 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
While I know some wierd bosses (not in BC raids, and don't really remember to list) did swap to the top person on the threat list from the tank after using a certain ability, I don't remember anyone complaining of a boss doing something like that in BC. Prince is a special case, he doesn't actually re-target but rather is poorly designed to enfeeble the MT if he's not on top of the threat list - and as far as I know he's the only boss that does that kind of thing in the whole game.
It's better to wipe once and find out you can't go above 100% then do the boss 100 times and every time do a lot less DPS becuase you don't know you can go above 100%. Omen complaints are just silly, if omen messes up it can mess up and make you pull aggro at 100% just as well as 50%, 130% or 150%. | ||||||||||||
| #2336 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Well you can't go over 100% in zul'jin phase 1.. Everything in BT/Hyjal should be safe aside from maybe archimonde.. but between pvp trinket on and one fear/burst you probably aren't getting back to 100%.
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| #2337 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
The reason there's very little data on the few special cases where you can't go over 100% is that those cases are quite rare combined with raid leaders and players as one being afraid to pull the line and go over 100% and see what happens.
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| #2338 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Clandestine |
I'm fairly sure that the boss can switch agro if you go above 110% on any fight with a random secondary target ability.
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| #2339 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Christian |
Thanks for your comments regarding the 130% threat thing. rest assured that it is not just a question für the theorist inside me. I have serious aggro problems on Illidan (although pausing in p1 is not really an issue regarding killing Illidan, it certainly sucks), on ROS p2/p3 (that might be a tank-gearing issue though) and sometimes on bosses where it's purely random if you are in a tank&spank-situation or actually have to adapt some strategy.
So if anyone can give me certain facts, even if it's just regarding certain bosses, i am very grateful. (Malchezzar has not seen me in a while) Last edited by Christian : Yesterday at 10:37 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2340 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Roywyn |
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That was a few months ago though, and may have been fixed (october/november roughly). | ||||||||||||
| #2341 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Flamingcloud |
That is most definitely not correct. Example, on both gorefiend and illidan I have been over 110% and not pulled after secondary targets, including secondary targets on me (ie parasite, etc) This was back when omen worked and I am 129% without aggro and 130% with aggro.
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| #2342 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Tyralia |
I've tried to do a bit of searching on this but haven't been able to find much (I generally suck at searching sigh...) but could anyone pls explain to me why, if the spell dmg co-efficient is a constant and so is the amount of speed increase you get from haste (not including the haste cap which I'm no where near)......why is it that after getting X amount of damage haste becomes better than dmg? How does that work?
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| #2343 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | SchLing |
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Haste is not effected by the same mechanic, meaning that a 0,5s reduction in cast time will affect all your spells. | ||||||||||||
| #2344 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Clandestine |
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| #2345 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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Spell power contribution per spell, ripped from ShadowSeer: regular: - Shadow Bolt: 3s/3.5s = 85.7 + 4% per talent point in SNF (up to 105.7%) - Incinerate: 2.5/3.5s = 71.4 + 4% per talent point in SNF (up to 91.4%) - Shadowburn: 1.5s/3.5s = 42.8% - Searing Pain: 1.5s/3.5s = 42.8% - UA: 18s/15s = 120% Halved because of life gain (or stun in Shadowfury's case): - Drain Life: 5s/3.5s /2 = 71.4% total (14.2% per tic) - Death Coil: 1.5s/3.5s /2 = 21.4% - Shadowfury: 1.5s/3.5 /2 = 21.4% on all targets - Siphon Life: 30s/15s /2 = 100% Channeled aoe: - Hellfire: 15s/7s = 214.2%. This is 14.2% per tic (note that damage to self is boosted 10s/7s instead) - Rain of fire: 8s/7s = 114.2%. This is 28.6% per tic Exceptions: - Corruption: 94% + 12% per talent point in emp Corruption. (up to 130%) over 6 tics - CoA: 120% over 12 tics. unsure how it is distributed. - CoD: 200% (unaffected by Shadow Mastery) - Seed (dot): 150% total (30% per tic) - Seed detonation: 16.6% on each target (aoe cap applies) - Immolation: 20% (initial hit), 65% (dot). Initial hit damage is boosted by improved Immolate, so spellpower contribution is 1% extra per talent point in that. - Soul Fire: 115% Any other multipliers will apply to the total damage. Let me know if I'm wrong about any of these. | ||||||||||||
| #2346 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Talosh |
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Correct one would be Click me. There you can swap a few point to other talents in the affliction tree (eg. Click me too), if you are up to pure CoS/CoE duty and therefor don't need CoEx/CoP. Honestly I cannot determine when Ruin>UA (I leave that for the mathematician), but for a warlock with MH/BT/SW-Gear, you definitely should have that gear. | ||||||||||||
| #2347 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | shamitude |
help with my warlock!!
I wanted to know the damage rotation of a destro lock with the demon sacrafice build, since my warlock just hit 70 i was thinking about using fire because ive read that fire has more dps for newly 70 locks and because i usually raid with 2 affliction locks with improved shadow bolt. I wanted to get youlls opinion if i should use fire or shadow and what damage rotation i should use for whichever is better. thanks!
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| #2348 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Zaq |
With a newly 70 warlock you shouldn't be Destro.
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| #2349 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
While you could make a lot of rules for spell damage coefficients, the fact is spells that aren't a simple nuke with no untalented secondary effect (shadowbolt, fireball), will get a coefficient that is an exception to the rules. UA/corruption for example are special cases and get 15s coefficient even though they're 18s, AOEs seem to each have its own rule, etc. If you really want a coefficient of a spell better trust wowwiki or even better test yourself, as so many spells simply don't follow these rules (as in, they follow the rules in general but have some added modifier for one reason or another, like frostbolt getting less than expected due to its snare and UA/corruption for no known reason).
The reason haste scales better the more spell damage you have has nothing to do with what that was said above in my and the other posts here. DPS = damage / casting time Keeping things simple, Factoring casting time by 1/x (where x = 1 + haste rating/15.7) will multiply DPS by x. Factoring damage by x will also multiply dps by x. The more spell damage you have the more spell damage is needed to multiply dps by x while same amount of haste is needed. Also the more haste (rating, heroism/bloodlust don't apply as they're another multiplier to your cast speed) you have the more haste rating you need to multiply DPS by x. Therefore the more haste you have the better spell damage is and the more haste you have the better spell damage is, since they multiply eachother. Keep in mind, though, that you need to add a lot of spell damage to actually change the amount of spell damage needed to multiply DPS by X by a noticeable amount, so this change in scaling of stats with different gear levels is actually very very slow. Especially if you consider the fact that higher gear has not only higher spell damage but also higher haste, making that change be even smaller as gear is upgraded. And there's no actual rule as to which stat has its value scaling better as gear scales up, as it depends on how much haste vs how much spell damage you gained. Simliar explanations can be used for crit vs damage or crit vs haste (as well as hit but hit is too good to be left under the hit cap anyway so is best handled differently). | ||||||||||||
| #2350 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Melbuframa |
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His thread is Here | ||||||||||||
| #2351 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
You can't really make a breakpoint. The more spell damage you have the more crit will be required for ruin to beat UA. If for example 1300 damage and 25% crit gave equal DPS for the specs, then 1400 spell damage would require more than 25% crit for them to be equal.
Also the difference in DPS between ruin and UA also depends on how many shadow destruction warlocks are in the raid, their crit chances and the number of shadow priests in the raid. For these reasons, it's best if you just use the spreadsheet to decide between ruin and UA, just make sure to place an appropriate dot-gap and raid shadow DPSers' stats, and take into account the rest-of-raid ISB DPS difference you get when you change specs. | ||||||||||||
| #2352 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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Also, I opened the calculator using the default setting, I input 30,000 +damage and 25% crit. Ruin still won (UA had 25,584 and Ruin had 26,210). Edit: Punctuation. | ||||||||||||
| #2353 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Flamingcloud |
Indeed there is no way UA is ever gonna beat Ruin in a sunwell gear level unless you are way below the hit cap. Plus the debuff cap is a real concern so its likely going no UA or Immolate is the best case scenario.
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| #2354 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
The sample warlock in my spreadsheet more than meets those "requirements" (26 crit and almost 1360 buffed damage in tank group) yet gets more DPS with UA even if using the gear that favors ruin (gives best ruin dps out of the gear options) in both specs.
Ruin will also scale better with haste which makes it even more impossible to make "requirements". Seems like I was wrong about the spell damage, though, and it actually makes little difference between UA and ruin. So the better build is based on some kind of multipication of your raid crit and haste taking into account the raid ISB (remember for some raid setups ruin will add more ISB uptime than it would for others, although this is probably a rather small differenece). Anyway the main reason you can't make a breakpoint is that it depends heavily on both your crit and haste level - saying you need a certain level of crit is wrong as infinite haste will generally make ruin better with much lower crit rates than you'd need if you have 0 haste. And it's not the only factor, but it is the most significant one. Since sunwell is filled with haste gear and your crit generally doesn't go down as you gear up, I wouldn't be surprised if ruin would pass UA with good enough gear. But you cannot put a line of "if you got X and Y stats ruin wins" as it simply won't always be true. | ||||||||||||
| #2355 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Vlar |
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I did not run the numbers for this, since the spreadsheet was squawking on this computer and I do not want to take the time to break out my laptop. Possible statement: At 0 haste and no other spec changes, Ruin is theorycrafted to out damage UA at X +spell damage and Y% Crit. Haste is thought to lower this requirement. | ||||||||||||
| #2356 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
Yeah but your requirement on crit will go down as crit goes up, and therefore you'll have to make some wierd non-linear function of crit and haste even if you decide to ignore the other, less sinigicant factors (that also affect it). Easier to just use the spreadsheet since you should have all your stats placed in there if you care about your DPS in the firstplace.
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| #2357 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | shamitude |
can anyone please tell me the best possible damage rotation for a destruction lock?
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| #2358 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arnath |
Quoted from the first page of this very thread:
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| #2359 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Presarc | |||||||||||||
| #2360 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Dassem | |||||||||||||
| #2361 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | shamitude |
Ok thanks alot guy, I just wanted to make sure I didn't need to use immolate,corruption, or conflagrate since my warlock is not well geared.
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| #2362 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Flamingcloud |
If you were in some sort of 4pc T5 setup, you would probably want to use corruption. Immolate is useful if you do all 10 fire talent points.. but I'd rather have the other stuff.
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| #2363 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | burnz68 |
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If you are using that v23 spreadsheet, you should make sure you're keeping your party and raid buffs accurate. For me that means an elemental shaman and max consumables but sadly no spriest yet. For you it may be radically different. | ||||||||||||
| #2364 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Nicarras |
Yes, if you are trying to weigh the gems, make sure you mention if its just you and no party buffs, or fully buffed.
My fully buffed values in T6ish gear will place haste considerably more valuable than dmg. Basically what I'm doing is all my yellow slots are +10 haste, all my red slots are +12 dmg. You can see that our gear generally has more yellow than red slots. I still have 2T5, and cant stand raiding as Felguard, so i'm just either shadow or fire destro depending on the day, or lock tank. | ||||||||||||
| #2376 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
Do both warlocks have subtlety enchanted on their cloak?
Does warlock #2 start attacking earlier than warlock #1? (i.e. does #1 start with Immo to give the tank a little time while #2 casts SB right off? This is personal preference and may not be good advice: If it is early in the fight and I am riding threat, I will back off a little to not pull, but later in the fight, I don't mind shattering to stay alive. | ||||||||||||
| #2377 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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You also can play a bit more conservatively in the first minute. Keep in mind a fixed 6 minute duration means you aren't getting more than 3 2 min CDs no matter how you slice it, barring a 0-2-4-6 setup getting a 4th activation on the enrage. I'd make sure you get a couple extra lifetaps in at the start, going into the soulshatter with full mana, then going into full throttle mode for 5 minutes. The nature of this fight is such that you should know exactly when you are using any type of drums/trinkets/heroism at the start. | ||||||||||||
| #2378 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
There is no guide to soul shattering - it depends on the fight. You just need to get a feel for how much threat your tanks generate and base it on that. When is the optimal time? There is no simple answer. Though mathematically on a pure theory fight 65-70% is the best time - assuming constant threat, however, few fights are like this.
Also 60% on Kelecgos is like 90% on most other bosses, you'll see :P. It's sort of like, wow we got Illidan to 65% on the first try! I agree you won't be able to kill Brutallus with no one in 4pc t6. | ||||||||||||
| #2379 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | lairpie |
Misdirect is usually enough to keep them from pulling agro too early, but they seem to very often be catching back up to the tank, and then shattering right before they pull agro. Then, before the fight is over, and before shatter is up again, they catch back up in threat. For a particular tank TPS, a particular lock DPS, and fight length, there's a mathematically correct time to shatter to be able to do the maximum amount of damage in a fight. Its not some sort of 'this feels like the right' time to shatter sort of thing. I'm not saying its some trivial thing to know the right time, but its not exactly complicated to figure out when it is if you just look at how much total damage you can do, while being under 130% threat for all points in the fight, based on when you shatter and what spells you open with and such. That can be generalized out into a formula for when to shatter, which other than agro dump fights, should be pretty close to accurate for any fight. Other than when using curse of doom, warlock threat for a 0-21-40 lock is pretty easy to look at other than crit streaks. Over the course of a fight if you're not using doom, which most wouldn't be in favor of CoS, CoR, CoE, threat's pretty linear. Obviously you or the tank could get lucky or unlucky and get off your average tps numbers, but, that doesn't really change the fact that there's an ideal time to shatter, anymore than random bad luck with crits would mean there's no ideal dps number for you. I thought perhaps someone had that model for when to ideally shatter worked out and that I could use it to help our damagers out. Sorry if that came out sounding somewhat caustic, but I'm just a little surprised to be getting a "its different for every fight" rather than a "you're dumb and bad at searching, the math for when to shatter is right here."
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| #2380 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
On Kalecgos & Brutallus:
We recently have downed Kalecgos and will try Brutallus soon. We have one warlock in 4p T6, despite farming BT/MH for months (bad luck on conqueror / having lots of priests+paladins / high attrition rate). We'll see how that goes. Kalecgos to 70% is not very impressive. The nature of the fight is that it gets progressively harder due to curses, enrage and portal randomness. He's certainly doable, but it's the same as getting Vashj or Illidan to 70%. Don't underestimate Kalecgos. And good luck with the fight, I find Sunwell really challenging and fun, so far. On hit rating and Magtheridon's Eye: Of course hit rating needs to be balanced off vs other upgrades. But _point for point_ it is the best damage upgrade on bosses. If you're choosing between equal hit and some other rating, you choose hit unless you're capped. This is typically the case for gems. Saying a spell being resisted is good for threat management shows a lack of insight in combat mechanics. Saying you need 10% hit for optimal performance seems to be based on the fact that you have that amount and nothing else. Typically on bosses you want to be as close as possible to 201, using gems (or shamans, of course). That _IS_ optimal strategy, and people have proven this with spreadsheets. I fully agree that the difference won't be stellar between 10+4% and 12+4% hit chance, but it will be higher than with the equivalent in spellpower or crit. I haven't done the math on haste for affliction. On threat mechanics: Back when Omen worked, I've been using the following strategy: When close to 130% I'd Soulshatter unless the fight would last a while and I was likely to hit threat cap again. In that case, use Life Taps (not strung together, but double tap + Shadow Bolt rotation so healers don't panic) and reposition during Life Tap global cooldown if that's applicable. If full on mana, and Shadow Bolt crits would get me over the threat cap, I'd use Immolate instead. If full on mana, and Immolate is up, Soulshatter. I was almost always safe after that, except for threat gimmick fight. Tips for those: nuke during non-sensitive moments, and abstain from CoD for CoE or CoR, and if push come to shove, just stand there and look pretty. Now that Omen is a horrible mess, it's a lot harder. I'm guessing it'll be fixed soonish. | ||||||||||||
| #2381 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Garith |
@ Nicarras
the gear now on the armory was a hodge pog of some crit gear i had in the bank laing around testing to see if i could get closer to 20% crit. it is by no means my usual afflic gear. also there is aleady a maledict wench in the guild. So i will never gimp my self that far into utility. I will be putting my regular gear back on so the armory will update it correctly. I usually run about 8-10% hit and 12% crit the gear i have is all proc based like i said before and gemed for haste and damage. even with the nerf to the MSD it is still very good for helping me get up UA's faster and an extra SB during a 3 cycle stretch.(proc'd cast time for a SB is 1.9 currently) So far i have 188 haste. and am always placing in the top 7 DPS. Have no need of a raid healer unless i am tanking. I would assume that being closer to the hit cap would of course be better for destro critting and overall DPS. Yet that would take a major overhaul of gear and gems. with the current gear set you all have looked at on the armory that is about the best crit based gear i have amassed being affliction. Cause i have passed the better crit gear of the destro locks and picked up the left overs. So i guess the question i am really asking i know the big numbers are in the destro tree. with what i got, what do i need to change? besides the Mag's eye and MSD. | ||||||||||||
| #2382 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Dassem |
Wow Web Stats
Hm, 2725 dps from a lock using succubus. Succubus specific 0/40/21 spec I guess? He did get a bit lucky with crits and also 2 heroisms, but impressive number nonetheless. Might have to try out something like that myself for fun | ||||||||||||
| #2383 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | • frmorrison |
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I just armoried him, and he is now 21/40. The succy is very squishie, so it seems he thought it wasn't worth it, especially because you have to turn off the shadow attack from the pet. It is nice to get extra damage out of the heroisms plus drums, but not worth the micromanagement it seems. He has two 10 crit gems, interesting choice. | ||||||||||||
| #2384 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Eph |
![]() And yeah, he got 160 bolts in, thats extremely impressive. | ||||||||||||
| #2385 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Jerace |
- Removed -
Last edited by Jerace : 04/13/08 at 1:40 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2386 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | • frmorrison | |||||||||||||
| #2387 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Jerace |
one had chosen to go dps and has done evry very poorly due to gear deficits
is there a macro that could be written, that only resets after the the duration of the dot has been met, so even if the lock spammed it, it would only cast after say 18 seconds in the case of corruption? Last edited by Jerace : 04/12/08 at 11:06 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2388 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Emolate |
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Clipping the last tick of a DoT isn't going to be the end of the world. It's possible that they're just missing with their filler spells, or doing something silly as a fill. Do you have a WWS available? Just make sure they all install ForteWarlock, ClassTimers, or DoTtimer and watch the bars move. Warcraft isn't Guitar Hero. | ||||||||||||
| #2389 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Myrdinn |
Hello warlocks friends
I am a raid leader interested in warlock gemming in order to improve my warlock' dps I tested Rawr (because it is shining for me as a mage) and tested it on my warlocks. Rawr is saying the best warlock gem is 10crit despite the fact the warlock is not hit-capped. Is that true ? ISB uptime matters so much it is more important to have 10 crit than 10hit or 12 dmg ??? For reference, warlock is here : Thanks for advice Last edited by Myrdinn : 04/13/08 at 2:22 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2390 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | clavarnway |
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| #2391 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Rawr is horribad don't use it. All the crit gems are completely worthless and will never be the best for a warlock.
2775 Damage isn't all that impressive from a miracle 43% crit rate(which is like 11% higher than he should have been factoring in ele shaman & talents), double heroism, triple drum, no burn, 1600 dps spriest, etc. I plug his numbers(including raid isb) in as 0/21/40 and get around 100 dps more. Plus you can drop an infernal for another like 200 dps as destro(one an hour ofcourse). | ||||||||||||
| #2392 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | clavarnway |
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| #2393 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nas |
I only see 88 Shadow Bolts that attempt. One thing I'm curious about is how easy it is to keep a Succy up with VE through burn/meteor slash damage that it would get through Soul Link. I noticed that Badkarma had used SL, while the other two similarly specced locks did not. He did not get Burn, however.
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| #2394 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Infernal does not remove demonic sac buff. I think on our first kill we got about 110k damage out of 2 infernals that were dropped around 90 seconds in on brutallus.
WWS does not recognize infernals in its current version, and is probably a reason you don't see this... But I don't see any reason why I can't let the cat out of the bag. ![]()
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| #2395 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nas |
Yeah, I was thinking about the damage mitigated via SL as I am pretty sure pets are unaffected by burn/slash themselves. I guess it's worth a try. I have used Infernals on Brut before and it's a nice DPS boost, it just isn't as reliable due to the long cool down, especially when we have not killed him yet, meaning one could potentially waste a one hour cooldown on a wipe due to tank deaths.
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| #2396 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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Xizorz - WWS It's almost exactly 200 dps, minus the time taken to summon him. Given the 1 hr cooldown, its hardly reliable, but somebody could put out a very impressive parse if they got lucky. | ||||||||||||
| #2397 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | clavarnway |
Is the time taken to deal with him when he breaks Enslave worth the gains? Or does he kill himself through some fight mechanic?
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| #2398 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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More realisitically, though, you don't want to use your 1 hr cooldown only to see the tanks splatter at 0:30. By waiting till the 1 minute mark, he'll last the duration of the fight without the need to enslave, and it delays your soulshatter a bit. It would be really interesting, though, if he could soak meteor slashes. | ||||||||||||
| #2399 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Eph |
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| #2400 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2401 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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I'd say that with a handful of KZ runs and some crafted gear, badge gear and MGT drops, you have the gear required for BT. If you can't keep up with the others dpswise when having that gear, you're doing something very, very wrong. If they really are that low on dps, I'd suggest any of the following: - make them read this EJ compendium and hope they improve - talk to guild/raid leaders have them force the warlocks to brush up their gear and make sane gear/spec choices - get leadership to recruit proper warlocks and hope their superior performance forces the others to improve - if all else fails, try and join a raid comm that does not allow idiots or at least doesn't take them to new encounters. If you're serious about raiding, you need at least some level of basic competence in order to progress. | ||||||||||||
| #2402 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Carnate |
A simple standard our guild got from a friend is this. Anyone in a DPS class mage/hunter/rogue/lock etc that loses to a hybrid on Brutalis is out. This can work for most fights in general. If your locks are constantly losing to the S priest, shammies or Retadins they are just not doing their job.
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| #2403 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | zanaris |
Shattered Sun Pendant of the Acumen
Has anyone done any theorycrafting with this neck? I've been looking, but unable to find anything. It seems wiki.shadowpriest usually has a listing of procs for things like this (especially the aldor version) but it looks like it hasnt been posted if any thing has been done on it. 2.4 is still only a few weeks old, so I wouldnt be surprised if people havent looked into it.
Sorry if someone has posted already, I've looked through the forums some but i'm still relatively new and I dont know exactly where to look and for some reason I dont think a simple search will find every topic. If someone knows where research on this item has been done please point me in the proper direction. EDIT: just realized that even though I put the name of the neck in the title some people might be confused what I am talking about. I'm talking about the neck which you obtain from being exalted with the shattered sun offensive. The Shattered Sun Pendant of the Acumen. Last edited by zanaris : 04/13/08 at 2:33 AM. Reason: clarification | ||||||||||||
| #2404 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
When I tested Shattered Sun Pendant of the Acumen it got 3 procs in 2 minutes, thought I think the actual rate would be abit below that due to the internal cool down.. The Scryer version is horrible, but the Aldor version should be the equivalent of a +60-65dmg neck I believe. Which I suppose makes it good if your neck is worse than kael/souls neck.
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| #2405 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Liminality |
so you are saying if you are still rocking Adornment of Souls or the KZ trash shadow damage neck, you should upgrade to this neck piece?
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| #2406 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud | |||||||||||||
| #2407 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | reduxed |
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Pendant of Acumen's item level is 115, which is significantly lower than Vindicator's Pendant of Conquest, or Adornment of Stolen Souls, while Ritssyn's has the same item level. I'm not sure if Acumen can outdo Vindicator's with a 12 spell damage gem in it (which comes pretty close to Sun King's Talisman), but then again I don't know what the internal cooldown of the proc is. | ||||||||||||
| #2408 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Myrdinn | |||||||||||||
| #2409 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Exilersess |
Previously, I've been stacking spell damage as aposed to shadow dmg since shadow damage didn't stack with shadow and flame or other talents that increase the spell damage effects of your spells. However, recently I heard that as of last patch, shadow damage was now stacking with these talents. Is this true? I want to make sure before I enchant soulfrost and swich back to pure death flasks and shadow power elixers.
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| #2410 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | wowzeers |
Ok really, I was just wondering hands down what is more dps fire or shadow. As of right now our guild has 3 locks so i am guessing for our set up we should all have isp for the shadow priest. But really I don't want to count total raid dps right now. So if our raid has 2 or 3 fire mages is fire a better destro build for me to get more dps or is shadow still better in the end.
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| #2411 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gumibear |
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| #2412 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Exilersess |
It didn't. I heard about it before a few times, then me and a former guildie of ours whent out and tested it. he put on
1k shadow gear, and I put on 1k spell dmg (give or take a few) and measured our shots. CoD didnt, and empowered coruption didnt either. we didn't test shadow and flame but some mages told us their talent that gives bonus fire damage off fireballs don't work off fire either, and someone else told me that all the talents were like that. I'm not a big number cruncher, and what I came up with and heard was that it didn't stack with talents. I just heard that it was fixed in the last patch to were it now does. If anyone has any information on this, I'm very interested. P.S. this is just with the talents, the shadow bolts and other spells are still effected by their apropriate schools of magic. | ||||||||||||
| #2413 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
How, exactly, does Nether Protection work on Brutallus?
Things I know: 1. It does not proc off Burn. 2. It does proc off Slash. You will still take the Slash damage you should be taking, but your debuff will be cleared, thus reducing the damage on the next Slash. If you have 0 or 1 stack of the debuff this does come in handy. Things I don't know: 1. If you eat a Slash and take a Burn within the next 4 seconds, does Burn still hit you or are you considered immune? 2. If you have a Burn and eat a Slash, and NP procs, do you immunity off the Burn? | ||||||||||||
| #2414 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trippy | |||||||||||||
| #2415 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen | |||||||||||||
| #2416 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | mandella |
Simple question: what's better on fight like Brutallus: Darkmoon Card: Crusade or Icon?
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| #2417 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gofa | |||||||||||||
| #2418 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Suggestive |
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| #2419 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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Nether protection makes you immune to Fire and Shadow DAMAGE. Not spells. The debuff still is applied. update: was pointed out this is wrong. I stand corrected. See below.. I'm fairly sure it can proc off both spells, and 100% sure it's next to useless on this fight due to the initial tics of burn being harmless and slash having a cooldown way longer than 4 seconds. If you are afflicted by burn you will be moving to a spot where you can't be hit by slash, since that would kill you. So a proc off one will only prevent initial burn tics, or the occasional slash right after you got afflicted by burn. The latter is arguably useful but rare. Last edited by Arelenda : 04/14/08 at 3:43 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2420 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | weet |
Actually what he posted was basically correct.
Having done Brut a fair amount with Nether Protection and watching my stacks, from my observation it can proc off a slash and you will not recieve any +fire damage debuff for that one iteration of meteor slash. Basically it means that you can sometimes avoid some of the raid damage (which is rather trivial). But a more valuable thing is if you get burn in a period soon after a slash that you resisted, meaning that a possible 2 or 3 (if you get unlucky with taking a 3rd slash while running to the burn spot) is lessened to 1-2. But yeah I have never noticed burn being immuned but the chance is very low for the two abilities to overlap, so cannot say for certain whether you can immune it or not. | ||||||||||||
| #2421 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Suggestive |
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| #2422 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Madlax |
I´m not 100% certain yet due to only ~50 attempts and 2 kills have past, but:
Netherprotection can procc on the initial Meteor Slash and make you invulnerable for the stacking buff(of that Meteor Slash - I had that happen quite often actually) It won´t help anything on Burn, as he ignores spell immunte targets appearently(bubble, netherprot) And it does not procc of Burn ticks. | ||||||||||||
| #2423 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Exilersess |
Im still working on kalec, and currently don't have nether prot so I can tank Illy, but From what I've noticed nether prot does remove most shadow and fire debuffs as well. I'm assuming from these post that it isn't the case with brut, but in general you would.
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| #2424 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
I've never seen it remove a debuff. As has been pointed out, it does make you immune to damage for the duration, and will prevent new spells from being applied.
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| #2425 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Miim |
I have been doing some initial testing on Fire lock since the change in 2.4 and here is my thoughts so far.
Would like some more educated and objective input from you guys. - Personal DPS seems to be more or less the same.. Might even be abit higher fire fire especially on long fights. - Seems more mana efficient, that leads to less lifetapping and gives a higher substainded DPS. - Shadow is still more usefull to the raid. Since Fire dont bring anything to the table besides good DPS. We usually raid with 2 shadow destro and me as fire destro so its not a problem. I would not accept all locks to go fire. - Fire is defiantly more interactive and for me at least more fun to play. - Shadow buff from Spriest is better than scorch buff from mages due to the fact that it is so much faster to apply. Still no big difference on bossfights (that really matter). When you have 2x Fire Mages. - Really nice for thrash, with fast casts, and deflag is a great finisher. Its more usefull than shadowburn cause it has longer range. - You loose some survivability as fire, since it is hard to spec with nether protection and soul leech. - Fire is also great for more mobile encounters since incinerate is faster to cast and immolate has a DOT effect. (I know immolate is a minor dps upgrade for shadow as well but imo it was never really worth the debuff slot then. Please anyone that have tested this seriously give me some of your thoughts. | ||||||||||||
| #2426 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Melbuframa |
We only have 1 lock in 4pT6 and we downed him last night, we have horrid luck with Conq tokens, random loot, nearly everyone else in the raid has 4p T6 however, so it’s definitely doable
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| #2427 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Redelm |
We frequently raid with 3-4 locks. And since 2.4’s buff to fire locks making it, from what I have seen, a viable raid spec (this is based on our best geared lock being able to output 1800-2000 dps as fire). I am wondering if it would make more sense to run 1 high crit shadow destro lock, to keep ISB up for SP’s and the affliction lock. And have the other locks spec into fire.
Basically the question is would 3 shadow destro locks keep ISB up more than 1 high crit shadow destro lock? We are going to be working on Brut, we are undergeared and would like to squeeze every bit of dps we can out of our locks. While providing the max raid benefit. | ||||||||||||
| #2428 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2429 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Eradorn |
Trinkets
With the advent of 2.4 I am wondering what trinkets I should use. I tried to use the spreadsheet, but these trinkets aren't in there, and since they have procs/use I am not sure how I could make them fit on "Custom"
I am Aff spec (43/0/18) I was using Icon and Living Ruby Serpent After Heroic MgT I switched Serpent to Timbal's Focusing Crystal Since I am a JC I can make the Crimson Serpent now. I know the stats are high, so on those "heavy dmg" fights, this will always be better, but compared to the Icon and Focusing Crystal how do they match up? With the extra int (larger mana pool before LT) as well as the lowered 2 min "use" am no longer sure which of the three is best to use on average. Your help is appreciated. | ||||||||||||
| #2430 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Carnate |
With 3 dest 1 aff and 1-2 SP you are running alot of shadow I would go with all Shadow Dest locks. When you turn 2 of the locks into fire you start gimping 3-4 other peoples DPS while adding little to their own.
Brutalis is not just DPS, the heals are stretched also. With shadow you can have Nether Protection and Soul Leach, these help heal the locks and lower Meteor Slash stacks (jury still out on burn use, but I haven't seen burn proc it yet). While not game breaking talents they do help. Even though I belive Shadow is the better choice, it is still just a minor upgrade. | ||||||||||||
| #2431 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | zanaris |
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I have a hard time believing that the aldor proc is worth 23-28+ dmg because spellstrike is only worth about 10-12 and seems to be about the same thing. (shattered sun proc is 20 spell damage more but proc is still only 10 seconds only allowing about 3 sb casts in unless you have a decent amount of haste and if you have that gear you probably wont be wearing this neck =P) The proc rate does seem to be higher than that of spellstrike, but if you only tested it one time then your results can be severely skewed. I realize beggars cant be choosers but unless the claims are supported in math, it's going to be hard to accept your opinion. | ||||||||||||
| #2432 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Well unless the proc rate is dramatically different than the proc rate on scryer version.. I got 3 procs in 2 minutes(I believe the neck is 15% chance 45sec cooldown).. so adjusting for internal cooldown, I think around 1.2 proc per minute is to be expected.. Thus a 20% uptime, or +24dmg value. I am not gonna do a 30 minute proc test since I am not aldor. 10 Second proc should get atleast 4finished 1 started bolts.. Possibly 5finished 1 started.
Last edited by Flamingcloud : 04/14/08 at 12:58 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2433 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Crosshairs |
I wanted to post this in the warlock thread as I figured you guys would provide the most information.
One of our warlocks(Ishmael ) wants to help understand how he can improve his overall damage done on Anetheron. I am not sure what to tell him, and I am hoping there might be some tricks that you could help out with. Warlocks - WWS | ||||||||||||
| #2434 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Savetheday |
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| #2435 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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It can however make you immune to doomfire for those 4 seconds, which is pretty good considering it is the only way you can actually die on that fight without screwing up horribly. It can proc on grip of the legion, making you immune to the first dot tic as well (it will NOT remove it). Archimonde is basically one of the fights where NP is actually really good. | ||||||||||||
| #2436 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Benafflock |
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First, he could drop Corruption from his spell rotation, and while I cannot see his armory at the moment, I would also venture to say that he could drop Immolate as well. The time spent casting Corruption, for example, would be better spent casting a Shadow Bolt. Secondly, all of the warlocks need to use utility curses: Curse of Shadows, Curse of Elements, and Curse of Recklessness. It looks like they might be doing that, but it's hard for me to discern whether the damage from their Agony and Doom is coming from Infernals or Anetheron. Thirdly, DPS time. The longer it takes for him to move between Anetheron and Infernals, the less DPS and the less damage he's going to be doing over the course of the fight. For example, being in such a position that one doesn't have to move at all, merely turn, in order to DPS the infernal is much more beneficial for one's DPS and damage than if he has to run over a hill and and across the road to get it. Finally, sometimes he might just get unlucky, and there's really nothing one can do about that. I see he took a Sleep that fight. Sometimes one won't take a single Sleep the entire fight, and sometimes he might take two or three. That's just how the RNG works. | ||||||||||||
| #2437 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Oculus |
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| #2438 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | zanaris |
added to the post
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Second, the fact that you only tested it once skews the results unless anyone can confirm a 15% chance on a 45 second cooldown. EDIT: ![]()
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| #2439 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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Sunwell Exalted Caster Neck Thottbot is what has it at 15% | ||||||||||||
| #2440 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | slowmo |
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Cant really check out armory right now, but as was posted above remove immolate and coruption from rotations. Since he wouldnt use immolate anymore emberstorm is worthless spec out if it and conflag, and put points into cataclysm and soul leech. Judging from the damage though i would venture to say t5 level gear? if that true warlocks become simple, cap out hit, 25% crit. Curse up, spam bolt and dont pull agro, pot and tap as needed. Forgot, for setting up what locks do what curse, have the 2 with the lowest shadow damage do CoR and CoS, the other 2 do CoDs. | ||||||||||||
| #2441 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ninielin |
Mmm sorry, quick question, is there a cloak in sunwell plateau? Haven't see any yet and my guild is running on dkp so I m just wondering if I should pick up illidari's cloak ( using ZA haste one atm), or just wait for a possible up in sunwell
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| #2442 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Pentamorfi |
I haven't seen one yet, but keep in mind M'uru's loot table is completely unknown at the moment. The end game gear set I've designed either uses the IC cloak or the Hyjal trash one, depending on spec.
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| #2443 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | • frmorrison |
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For Fire vs Shadow and assuming all Tier 6 gear, the best setup is one Shadow (this Lock should have a lot of crit) and the rest Fire. | ||||||||||||
| #2444 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
If you're running with an affliction warlock he should always be on 13% CoS duty, obviously. You should never really have more than 1 affliction warlock in a good raid so the rest are obviously worst 2 locks CoR+CoE (no CoE if only 2 locks or only 1 mage) and rest do CoD. Anything else is simply a DPS loss for the raid. And CoR's damage increase is fully miticated by 5/5 improved demoralizing shout which your raid should have (as in, a boss with 5/5 demo on him hits same (or about the same) as one with CoR+5/5 demo).
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| #2445 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | outofcontrol |
Where does haste play into itemization for warlocks, is stacking haste in T6 or equivalent gear more important than stacking damage?
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| #2446 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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My rough conclusion is that dmg > haste for people venturing into sunwell gear.. Meaning crimson spinel in red, and reckless pyrestone in yellow. Ofcourse you should use the spreadsheet to figure out what the turning point is for you.. In my current gear for example (factoring in full raid buffs and heroism/drums brutallus setup) I have 1haste = 1.01dmg.. but if you remove heroism/drums I have 1haste = 1.19dmg... Remove zhar'doom for tempest/chronicle, and Ring of Ancient Knowledge for Band of the Eternal Sage and I get 1 haste = 1.28dmg. More so than anything else.. it is the more haste you have the worse it gets, and the further into sunwell you get the more haste you will have, so gemming +10haste should be considering to be something you are only doing temporarily. | ||||||||||||
| #2447 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Torq | |||||||||||||
| #2448 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | InterSlayer |
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There's a Twin eredar kill video from a fire-warlock perspective out there, but I think he ended up getting owned on damage by the shadow-destro locks. ;o | ||||||||||||
| #2449 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | achille |
does demonic resilience reduce the damage that is transferred to the pet via soul link? prevented isn't the same as reduced.
Last edited by achille : 04/15/08 at 6:32 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2450 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nas |
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I have also gone 40/21 on the kill with a SL'ed Succubus out, the DPS was very solid and the succubus simply never took any damage that I had noticed with a SP in the group. Brutallus is a pet friendly encounter. | ||||||||||||
| #2451 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
People keep saying Fire destro costs less. I'd like to bust this myth. Fire _used_ to be cheaper before the changes to Emberstorm.
Calculation Shadow Bolt is 420 mana and cast time is 2.5s. SB spam is 420/2.5 = 168 mana per second (MPS) Incinerate is 375 mana and cast time is 2.25s. Incinerate spam is 375/2.25 = 166 MPS Immolate is 445 mana and cast time is 1.5s. cost = 296mps. Updated apparently this needed clarifying. Let's assume a spell rotation with Immolate, Incinerate x 6. total mana = 445+ 6 x 375 = 2695. cast time = 1.5s + 6 x 2.25s = 15s. cost = 2695/15 = 180MPS Assuming 7 Incinerates per immolate, which can be done with enough haste, gives us 178mps. Note that the actual mana cost will be higher due to the haste but this is irrelevant, it'd be the same for shadow. Conclusion Shadow Bolt rotation = 168 MPS Fire rotation = 166 MPS if not keeping up Immolate Fire rotation with Immolate = 180 MPS So fire is only cheaper if you're not keeping up Immolate. Raidwise fire is more expensive, unless you're counting on an affliction lock to keep up Immolate at all times. Even assuming this, the difference is marginal at best. I'm ignoring cataclysm, since I'm assuming both builds have it. If Fire destro doesn't have it, SB spam is definitely cheaper. If fire has it, they need to drop ISB to get it. I'm ignoring haste since I think it affects both builds equally. Exception is that Immolate becomes less frequent as more haste is obtained. For this reason I'm assuming one Immolate per 6-7 Incinerates. I also don't know how haste interacts with Emberstorm's speed. I don't think the difference will be substantial either way. In addition, shadow destro can use +shadow damage, which increases Life Tap gains. How much difference this makes depends on the length of the fight and the difference in power between both. I'd very much like to see the math for stating that optimal strategy is having one warlock for ISB and the others fire. It's true that multiple destro locks will have diminishing returns on ISB uptime, but they will be adding to the raid's shadow damage, resulting in a larger multiplier on the other side. ISB uptime is completely useless as a measure. You want to look at total damage boosted. Last edited by Arelenda : 04/16/08 at 7:25 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2452 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kemi |
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According to my simulations, haste doesn't get worse the more you have of it--spell damage just gets better the more haste you have, so it looks like haste gets worse (since everyone uses "spell-damage-equivalent" as the standard of comparison). In other words, 15.7 haste rating will always increase your damage from Shadow Bolt spam by 1%, no matter how much haste you already have. But if you're an unhasted 0/21/40 Warlock, a point of shadow damage gives you .423 DPS...and by the time you're hasted to 2-second shadow bolts, that same point of shadow damage is giving you .529 DPS. So you've increased the value of Shadow Damage to you by 25.1%, while the value of Spell Haste has held constant. I'm open to being proven wrong, but that's what both my number-crunching and my simulator have shown me. What I'm still uncertain about (and if someone who is better at math could answer this question, I'd be most grateful) is whether increasing levels of spell haste also increase the benefit of spell crit and spell hit. My intuition says, and my preliminary simulation results seem to concur, that spell crit and spell hit are not improved by increasing levels of spell haste in the same way that spell damage is improved, and so sufficient spell haste just makes spell damage far and away the best of the four stats. But I've been unable to prove this to myself (not being good at math). I'd be very grateful if a more mathematically inclined theorycrafter could establish this one way or another. | ||||||||||||
| #2453 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Sumie |
Question for T6 affliction locks--
Do you drop immolate from your rotation once you get 4 piece T6 in favor of more shadowbolts? | ||||||||||||
| #2454 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
When I said haste gets worse, I did indeed mean in relation to +dmg as you said.. There is no point comparing a stat to a dps increase. There really is no difference between saying haste gets worse with more haste, or saying +dmg gets better with more haste.
As to the other question.. I believe you do not drop immolate unless you are having debuff issues. | ||||||||||||
| #2455 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | outofcontrol |
So does end game lock itemization consist of Hit>haste>dmg>crit?
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| #2456 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
That would depend on gear, spec, raid setup and encounter. Roughly, I'd say you're correct. Fill your data in the spreadsheet and you'll get a good estimate of what kind of tradeoffs apply to you.
To the person writing the simulator: For SB Spam for destrolock (excluding ISB and mana issues) dps = (bolts-per-second) * (average-non-crit-bolt-damage) * (hit chance) * (1 + crit chance) Common sense tells you that increasing any of these will make the contribution of all other 3 factors larger. | ||||||||||||
| #2457 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deuel |
Dps
Ok so I could use a little help trying to figure out some possible dps increases. First yes, I have already looked and played with the lock spreadsheet, but I wanted to ask as well due to the fact that personal experience is greater than what a spreadsheet may say is better at times. Currently the biggest issue I feel I have is my first trinket slot, I was testing the Xi’ri’s Gift to add to my crit rating, and give myself a double proc trinket. But during our last attempts on Brut, I felt my dps was real slacking, I was in s priest , shaman group and only doing like 2kish dps. (For reference we were running 3 destro locks, 1aff/ruin, and 2 s priest for shadow users). Unfortunately, this trinket is not in the spreadsheet, so I just based my calculations off of Nexus-horn. I believe on next attempt/kill I’m going to switch to icon instead of Gift, but I’m still a little iffy about that. We have not had the best of luck when it comes to trinkets, so I do not have a sextant, or skull(atm), to trade into that spot. For those that may have run into this situation what suggestions could you make? I was also tempted to use Darkmoon deck and fit in destro pots in-between Hex cool downs.
The World of Warcraft Armory * Here is a link to my armory, to show gear for better reference. I’m open to any possible gear comments also. (I would trade void for IC cloak, if we ever got more than 1 to drop, 8( suck horrid luck on certain caster drops). Also for those that may be using double proc trinkets, if your using a destro pot, do you prefer/notice a difference if you use them with the trinket usage, or a little after to add something extra in-between cool downs ? Thanks for any advice or suggestion… | ||||||||||||
| #2458 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Clandestine |
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| #2459 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deuel | |||||||||||||
| #2460 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Clandestine |
For Brutallus you should use Hex-Shrunken Head and the crusade deck. Put a Lionseye or Pyrestone in your bracers, yellow socket bonuses are very much so worth getting. Do you have Ring of Ancient Knowledge, Mana-Attuned Band, or Loop of Forged Power available for ring slot? Depending on which of those you have you probably want to switch rings. Otherwise looks fine.
edit: and you should leave footpads of madness and belt of blasting on instead of using noose and shifting nightmare. Last edited by Clandestine : 04/16/08 at 4:20 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2461 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deuel |
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| #2462 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | SchLing |
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But yes, casting Shadowbolts for 1 minute will use 168DPM*60s = 10080MANA While casting Incinirate + Immolate for 1 minute will use (166DPM*60s = 9960MANA) + (3,5Cast*445MANA = 1557MANA). Making a total for mana usage for that minute 11517. Meaning you will use 1437 more MANA with Incinirate and Immolate. | ||||||||||||
| #2463 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gilthanor |
This isn't something I know how to figure out from the Leulier spreadsheet. We usually have 3-4 warlocks and 1-2 shadow priests in every raid, and my crit chance has just dropped down to about 19% (24% after Devastation). With crit being even lower on the totem pole of stats since haste is more common, how low can a destro lock afford to drop his crit chance and not suffer from a lack of ISB?
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| #2464 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Mehrfru |
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Most t5-t6 geared Destruction locks will be able to cast the SB for 1min using that calculation , while u need to cast immolate 4 times during that minute. Its 200mana more over 1 min if i counted correctly. Kind of looks to me that Fire still is not the way to go as warlock ( as always people should play anyway they like ), since as far as i can tell you will be life tapping more , but not gaining the same amount of mana back since going fire probably means u will use pure +fire items dropping your shadowdmg. | ||||||||||||
| #2465 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Miim |
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Im going back to shadow /sad face Im not gonna claim that fire is a bad choice.. Shadow is just better. Its dps is higher (not much) and its mana efficiany is better (I though this would be one of the advantages with fire) But what really tips the scale for me is.. You get more survivability with shadow for free.. With nether prot and soul leech. Its really sad that SB spam destro is so powerfull. | ||||||||||||
| #2466 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | SchLing |
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| #2467 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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I updated the original post to clarify this. As for fire being better on trash, I have my issues with that. Here's what I experienced during my stint as fire in ZA: a. Immolate sucks on trash. b. Incinerate is clearly inferior to Shadow Bolt without said Immolate. c. typically mages won't bother with scorch on trash. d. on trash packs that live long enough, putting CoA on the offtanked adds is clearly superior, and Shadow destro does this better. e. Conflagrate is nice but generally you want to move to the next target instead of wasting a GCD on a target that will die anyway. The exception is when you want things to die that second, but generally, on trash, this isn't an issue As to fire vs shadow: I'm pretty much convinced at this point that the raid benefits most from having all destro warlocks spec Shadow Destro. Fire is definitely higher personal dps if you can juggle your way around the Immolates, but Shadow wins out to group synergies and being easier to play. The difference isn't that high, though, and dependent on raid setup. Fire's prettier though. I'd love it if the person writing the simulator would run some tests for this. Writing a computer program to simulate 3 warlocks + 2 shadow priests is rather trivial, and could be used to compare damage outputs. This would be very hard to do with a spreadsheet. | ||||||||||||
| #2468 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Miim |
Haste is so hard to "calculate" for me.
For example.. A simple question that dont bring spellhit into the math to mess things up even more ^^ Fathomstone Binds when picked up Held In Off-hand +16 Stamina +12 Intellect Requires Level 70 Equip: Improves spell critical strike rating by 23 (1.04% @ L70). Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 36. Fetish of the Primal Gods Binds when picked up Held In Off-hand +24 Stamina +17 Intellect Requires Level 70 Equip: Improves spell haste rating by 17 (1.08% @ L70). Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 37., What would you choose and why? (SB Destro spec ofc) | ||||||||||||
| #2469 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zephro |
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I know how you feel, though. I *finally* got a Nethervoid cloak last week and equipping it gets me down to 18.2% char-sheet crit, which is uncomfortably low. | ||||||||||||
| #2470 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | XT74 |
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MPS doesnt say anything about mana effectivity, who cares if i go oom sooner while dealing same dmg ? I do becouse it means my dps increases and im even more effective than before ! | ||||||||||||
| #2471 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Fathomstone vs Fetish question is not answerable. It depends not only on your own gear, how highly you rate stamina, but it also depends on how you setup your raids shadow users in the improve shadowbolt tab of the spreadsheet.
And who cares what costs what mana, all that matters is dps AFTER lifetap is factored in. | ||||||||||||
| #2472 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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If you are going to use destro pots, though, I'd macro it into my hexhead and pop them together at around the 1, 3, and 5 minute marks, preferrably with heroism on 2 of these. | ||||||||||||
| #2473 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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In other words, there are no minimum values of any stat you should be looking for, and the spreadsheet does have answers to all your questions. | ||||||||||||
| #2474 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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| #2475 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
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At the end of the day, they're both very close in terms of total Raid DPS contribution and comes down to a choice of consolidating DPS (in you) or spreading it to other shadow users and slightly buffing the SP's group with slightly more regen. | ||||||||||||
| #2476 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kemi |
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But perhaps I've expressed my concern badly. Consider the following, please: 1) No matter how much haste I have, 15.7 haste rating will always increase my DPS by 1% (setting aside, temporarily, the question of mana issues). 2) If I have zero shadow damage, adding 100 shadow damage increases my DPS by something like 20%. If I have 1500 shadow damage, adding 100 shadow damage increases my DPS by something like 5%. That's a pretty drastic drop-off in the effectiveness of shadow damage at increasing my DPS. 3) If I have zero crit, adding 1% crit increases my damage by more than 1% (because of ISB). If I have 99% crit, adding 1% crit increases my damage by 0.5%. Again, 50% less effective at 99% crit than at 0% crit. So, just from looking at this, it would seem that highly geared people would want to invest more in spell haste, because it continues to offer the same percent increase in DPS (and applied to a higher base DPS, even!) per rating point, while both spell damage and crit offer smaller percent increases in DPS per rating point as gear improves. But that's not what the simulator is showing, and that's because, as far as I can tell, the synergistic effects of each stat on the others are non-linear. It's that precise non-linearity that I'm having trouble modeling (mostly because my practical math knowledge stops at algebra, in spite of a painful year spent in Calc 1). Here's the thing--as far as I can tell, when evaluating the effect of 1 point of crit rating or 1 point of hit rating, it matters not at all whether I have 0 haste rating or 1000 haste rating. But when evaluating the effect of 1 point of shadow damage, it matters a great deal. If you have a lot of spell haste, you will see a bigger percent increase in DPS per point of shadow damage. But the percent increase in DPS per point of crit is not affected by how much spell haste you have. And that's why it matters whether "spell haste gets worse the more you have" or "spell damage gets better the more spell haste you have". Because if the former is true, then spell damage and spell crit remain in the same relationship with each other, and spell haste falls behind them. But if the latter is true, then spell crit and spell haste remain in the same relationship with each other, and spell haste pulls ahead of them. This seems to be what my simulations are showing: that as you get more spell haste, spell crit and spell hit start to lag behind spell damage. Thoughts? | ||||||||||||
| #2477 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar | |||||||||||||
| #2478 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Sylvannae |
My guild currently doesn't use curse of recklessness, though granted we do not have warriors with improved demoralizing shout. Is this wrong? I understand that CoR is a 5-6% increase in physical DPS, but just how does the increased AP evaluate? I am under the assumption that only one +AP and only one -AP can work on any single target, though this may be wrong.
Curse priority as far as I understand is CoS, then CoE, then CoR. Should we be using CoR regardless of the fact that we do not have improved DS? | ||||||||||||
| #2479 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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You would need to answer a few questions before your final could be answered. Note: Most, if not all of this is in the first post. First, what is your raids average physical dps? (Hunters, Enh. Shaman, Rogues, Warriors, Feral Druids.) Remember that would include the tanks dps, since even though it should be miniscule compared to the others, it would increase as well. Would that increase out damage your dps from Curse of Doom? Do your healers have issues keeping the tank alive? | ||||||||||||
| #2480 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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But for hit rating? Lagging behind? If we ignore dots, hit is equivalent to haste: it will allow you to land more spells in a given time frame. One stat will get you less resists, while the other lets you cast more spells. If you increase hit chance from 90% to 99%, you should get a 10% increase in damage, regardless of your crit, haste, or spelldamage. If your simulator tells you otherwise, I'd go look for programming errors. | ||||||||||||
| #2481 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
Your simulator seems to ignore a lot of factors that the spreadsheet is handling well. Unless there's a serious flaw in the spreadsheet that you found that makes you not want to use it (in which case, point it out) - you're probably better off using the spreadsheet since it will take into account things that you ignore.
When you generlize things and ignore small corrections like ISB effects and lifetaps (and yes, they're small but far from neglicible which is why we use the spreadsheet), DPS = (base damage + dmg X coefficient) * (1 + crit chance) * hit chance * (1 + haste increase). Understanding that basis tells you everything you need to know about how stats scale in general. Not the most accurate since it ignores some small corrections, but it should get the idea through of how stats scale. If you look at the relative DPS you just calculate new dps/old dps - 1, which means any stat you left constant will not matter since it appears both in the dividor and the dividend with same value (excuse my english if I used an improper term ) | ||||||||||||
| #2482 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
The spreadsheet, and simple intuitions based on a relatively small number of factors in a spell-spamming scenario, show every other DPS-contributing stat increasing in DPS/point if you raise haste. Haste drops by a small amount in DPS/point (due to nonzero MP5). The simple intuition is that haste speeds up the entire rotation, which means all of the other stats will be used more per unit of time. If I cast 20 spells a minute and haste myself to 21: crit, hit and +dmg all affect one more spell per minute.
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| #2483 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | PSGarak |
Kemi: X% compared to what? Percent changes aren't necessarily the best thing to be looking at anyways. For a fixed crit/hit/haste, 100 damage adds a flat amount of damage. That flat amount of damage is, like you say, 20% of the damage you would do at 0 spell damage and 5% of the damage you would do at 1500 spell damage... that would seem to indicate that the percentages are illusory.
The percent benefit by adding crit drops off dramatically, but the flat damage increase dropss off rather slowly. If it weren't for ISB, it wouldn't drop off at all, it would just be a static damage increase at fixed damage, just like +dmg is a static damage increase for fixed crit. ISB is, as we have noted, hard to model, but it is known to be monotonically decreasing. Haste scaling works the same way. 100% haste gives you twice the damage of 0% haste; 200% haste gives you three times the damage. The first and second 100% haste have given you the same amount of damage. Hit and crit are capped at 100% hit/crit, haste is capped at 1.0s global cooldown. How do these scalings interact? They multiply simply. The complicated part you're seeing isn't very far off from linear, except for crit. It's called affine linear: There are additive constants on all the terms, which get caught by all the other terms. It makes them look like they're behaving funky. Basically, when you try to change two variables at the same time (say hit and crit), there's the expected second-order term (hit*crit), but also two extra terms (crit*constant and dmg*constant) from the base damage and base crit chance. Asymptotically those extra terms become irrelevant, but the point where that's true is impossible so we have to muck around with them. | ||||||||||||
| #2484 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Carnate |
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Quote from the Compendium Curse of Recklessness - Stacks with every other armor reducing debuff, and will typically increase melee and hunter damage by around 6% if FF and 5xSunder Armor are present, according to [RAID] Boss armor values. You typically want as many armor reducing debuffs on a boss as possible, since each one adds more (Increasing Returns, as opposed to Diminishing). It will make the enemy hit slightly harder, though. To be avoided when the boss has an ability that is based on his melee attack power, such as Mortal Strike or Cleave. Useful on enemies that don't hit hard enough for a tank to keep aggro, it will help with their threat generation on those by a small amount. CoD vs CoR: Which one is more profitable depends on the raid setup. More physical dps means CoR becomes better, obviously. Physical Raid Dps needs to exceed (CoD damage / 3.6) for CoR to be the better choice. (CoD dps = CoD damage/60, and CoR dps = Physical dps *0.06). Note however that you need to refresh CoD twice as often. Simply put if you have more than 3333 physical raid DPS then CoR is better than CoD (assuming 12k CoD which is T6 lock range). So CoR should be up every fight. In most raid setups it's better than CoS or CoE. Exceptions are those bosses that have special attacks affected by the attack power or who already have 0 armor. Illiadan & Gurtogg during their enrages are two times that we don't use CoR. | ||||||||||||
| #2485 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Raithlin |
Can anyone confirm for me that a nether protection proc while tanking Illidan would in fact cause mayhem and carnage?
i.e. does a proc cause aggro to reset or would a lock spamming SP still be able to keep hold of him? Thanks | ||||||||||||
| #2486 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Caffeine |
It doesn't reset threat, but it makes you immune to his attacks for the duration of the proc and he will turn for 2nd on the aggro list and Shadow Blast him instead. If you are going to tank Illidan, either spec out of it or have a macro with /cancelaura Nether Protection, which you need to spam (but I don't recommend this, it's how I know for sure he will ignore the warlock tank and turn for 2nd on threat :P )
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| #2487 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Heh.. One of our locks tried to tank illidian while spamming a macro to remove nether protection.. Didn't work, we wiped, everyone got mad at him =p
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| #2488 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kalle |
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dps(haste_rating) = unhasted_dps * (1 + haste_rating/1577) Increasing your haste rating from 0 to 15.77 (0% -> 1%) yields an increase of dps(15.77) / dps(0) - 1 = 1.01 / 1 - 1 = 1% Increasing your haste rating from 157.7 to 173.47 (10% -> 11%) yields an increase of dps(173.47) / dps(157.7) - 1 = 1.11 / 1.1 - 1 = 0.91% | ||||||||||||
| #2489 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
I think the compendium needs to be fixed then, since CoD DPS is not just the damage divided by 60s, as you have to substract the shadowbolt DPS lost by spending that GCD as well, so the DPS increase is actually smaller.
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| #2490 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
The compendium already mentions this.. It's one GCD per two minutes.
Last edited by Arelenda : 04/17/08 at 11:09 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2491 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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| #2492 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #2493 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Telyz |
have you discusses if immolate and Incinerate is better then SB and what lvl gear would it be better?
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| #2494 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
I suppose you mentioned double GCD usage, although it's probably more appropriate to also mention that the damage lost due to that extra GCD is simply 3/5 shadowbolt (plus some neglicible difference in mana consumption).
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| #2495 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Eph |
I mentioned this in another thread, but this is the Brutallus specific spec I used once we decided to use a SE Affliction lock. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
In the spreadsheet I found Ruin and Imp attacking (since he will live here) to be the highest dps setup. With an improved curse and Imp dps the rdps loss wasn't too bad. Though if your healers can handle it Destruction is obviously the still best choice for Brut. | ||||||||||||
| #2496 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Tacitus |
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| #2497 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid | |||||||||||||
| #2498 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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We're talking about 738 haste rating, resulting in 1/(1 + 0.5) for a reduction of 33%. GCD is then 1s. Which is the cap. | ||||||||||||
| #2499 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
And that's only the cap for GCD spells, shadowbolts would gain from haste until you have 150% haste which is even more impossible to get. Not like the old GCD was a real limitation as back in 2.3 you still needed 67% haste to stop benefiting from it.
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| #2500 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #2501 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Tacitus |
Allrighty then, seems that I need to study math a little more.
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| #2502 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Fateblade |
Last edited by Fateblade : 04/19/08 at 12:32 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2503 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kuradoberi |
Fire destro dps loss
Is the bonus damage provided by having Immolate up, affected by spelldamage gear or is it just a flat bonus?
This question is nagging me, since I am testing fire destro. The leulier spreadsheet says I gain ~3% more personal dps, provided i have godlike timing with 100% Immolate uptime. While testing it ( 5/5 mh, 4/9 bt ), some issues came up. Clipping Immolate and Incinerate without Immolate up. Taking my first night as fire as an example : Kuradoberi - WWS Provided I can do around 4 Immolates per minute, and I happen to clip it everytime, my rough draft tells me I will have an avg dps loss of (4x493)/60 =~ 33 dps. The leulier spreadsheet does not have a formula for Incinerate without Immolate up, since clicking Immolate on/off does not show any difference at all. Depending whether the bonusdamage is affected spelldamage gear, what is a greater dps loss? Clipping Immolate or having your 5/6/7th Incinerate doing damage without Immolate up, depending on your rotation. | ||||||||||||
| #2504 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | garazdawi |
If possible/needed I always try to get a lifetap in at the end of the immolate, otherwise I'd rather clip the immo than to let a inc hit without immo. Feels like a tic of immo always will be less damage than what you loose out on a inc hitting without immo.
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| #2505 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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I'd recommend not clipping Immolate by using Life Tap near the end of the Immo duration, and just using an Incinerate with Immo up if Life Tap isn't needed. Note that other warlock's Immolate count too. The messing about with the Immo debuff is one of my main reasons not to play with fire. | ||||||||||||
| #2506 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Talimar |
according to the spreadsheet a reckless pyrestone is worth a tiny bit more dps than a runed crimson spinel.
however when I replace my spinels with pyrestones, my dps drops? also I'm wondering how many mages do you need for CoE to outdamage CoD? Im telling myself at least 3 but I throw it up when theres only two as well just so they wont qq at me. | ||||||||||||
| #2507 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Lovecraft |
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That should give you a rough estimate. There are other factors, such as when you'd be using CoA over CoD if TTD was less than one minute, but that shouldn't adversely affect the calculation, given there'd be a much larger deviation in raid DPS from week to week than CoD to CoA DPS/DPCT. | ||||||||||||
| #2508 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kalle |
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| #2509 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | garazdawi |
CoD does about 10k damage over 60 seconds. So that is 10,000/60 = 166 dps. CoE adds 10% to any mage (and fire lock!) in the raid. So they have to do more than 1666 dps together to make CoE worth it. The mages I play with all deliver that DPS on their own, so just one mage is enough to put CoE up. If you are just starting to raid karazhan and mage should still be able to output atleast 800 dps so with 2 mages CoE should be up.
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| #2510 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
1. Look at the ISB DPS, when it's taken into account when evaluating "next stat" but doesn't add it to your DPS when you just change your damage/crit.
2. Turn yourself from CoE to CoD on the spreadsheet and see your DPS difference, then see if it's more than mage DPS / 10. For my example gear CoD DPS gain is 173 so mages would need to total at least 1730 DPS. If your gear is better then CoD will do a bit more DPS requiring a bit more - this makes 1 fire mage really situational depending on exactly how much you get from CoD vs CoE and how much DPS he does, but if you have 2 fire mages it's a no-brainer to CoE. If mages are arcane though it depends how much of their damage is actually from arcane and how much is from frost (assuming a standard 40/0/21 arcane spec) so you'll have to take into account fight duration and the support they have as well... Anyway you definitely don't *need* 3 mages to use CoE, but you do need 3 warlocks since CoS and CoR are quite better in any realistic raid. | ||||||||||||
| #2511 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zasz |
Any ideas how I can convince my raidleader to stop sticking me to the tank group? Yesterday for example we did BT up to bloodboil and I was in the group with 3 prot warriors and a bear. I´m one of 2 affliction warlocks in our guild, the other 3 are full destru. For akama I was lucky enough to get to the group with 2 warlocks, 1 elemental and 1 mage.
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| #2512 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
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No offense, but the reason you're in the raid as affliction, is to be in the tank group to give Improved Imp... I'm sorta confused. There's something called "Raid Utility" and affliction is a "Raid Utility" spec, if you want pure personal DPS, you'd be destruction. | ||||||||||||
| #2513 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Emolate |
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| #2514 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | barlaniel |
Sunwell brutallus Dps
My guild is currently on brutallus and i have a couple of questions about my own dps.
Fully raid buffed i have 1530 shadow dmg 30%crit (talents inc) hit cap and no spell haste gear. Now heres what i need to know currently i seem to be capped at around 2000 dps.Ive looked over a lot of wws reports of brutallus kills and from all this ive come to the conclusion that since my guild is going to be using 2 shadow priests and 1 or 2 others who dont have 4 pc yet there has to be some extra dps coming from the top 5. I fairly sure ill be one of these but i just dont think that 2000 dps cuts it. I do have a shaman in my group and i think ill be gettin a shadow preist although not 100% sure yet. Either way however even with a s. preist i cant get above 2000 dps. I use destruction potions as well as litterly ride the tanks ass all the way home on on terron and the few brutallus attempts we have had. What can i do to boost my dps to the 2200-2400 range that i continusly see on the wws reports of bruallus kills. I dont have a skull of guldan , but atelast from what ive read it shoudlnt add 200+dps. Does Dps rely on the timing of the first hit and the size of it? Ive noticed that if i start off with a 9800 crit or something similar my dps at the end of the fight seems higher then if i start with a normal non crit.I never did check to see if the damage done at the end of the fights changes i tend to only look at straight dps. Does that matter at all or is that just me overanalizing? Are the warlocks in those wws reports gettin chain heroisms? All i kno is i wanna see my numbers in the 2200-2400 range.Drums i kno can increase the groups dps we have only 3 who have them but other then drums any other tips or suggestions? Also we have 4 destro locks right now so ISB is up almost all the time. Does having an 1 shadow preist vs 2 increase its uptime? Thats another thing i have been wondering heavily since midblast is a 1.5 sec cast they eat up the isb debuff's at a rate of 2 per 1.2 shadow bolts ,And shadow word death is instant. since we have 4 locks doesnt that reduce the uptime? meaning that Evry 8 and 12 sec we would loose out on basically 3 of the 4 warlocks 20%extra dmg. i did the math and a destro warlock benifits more from the same 20% but my point is having 4 warlocks with 100%+crit altogether with anything more than 1 shadow preist reduces dps and dmg of the 3 of the 4 locks with 1 lock gettin randomly lucky evry 8 to 12 sec. im not sayin s preist should not use death and mind blast cause that is way to much dps loss but is there a cap where having X amount of warlocks mixed with X amount of shadow preists becomes counterproductive. i may be wrong on that last part its just a theory but either way i hope someone out there has thought as hard about fine tuning dmg output. Last edited by barlaniel : 04/18/08 at 8:58 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2515 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | taybul |
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| #2516 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
Just look at the spreadsheet, play around with number of shadow users of each type and you'll get your answers of how much DPS you lose from less ISB form having an extra shadowpriest. But I can already tell you with 4 warlocks the difference in ISB will not be big when you change from 1 to 2 shadowpriests. The extra mana those shadowpriests give to their parties and thus their extra dps is a lot more beneficial unless you're trying to do all the DPS yourself in which case you may just need to find a new guild.
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| #2517 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Warlocks pulling 2000dps on brutallus is probably fine if you have amazing melee.. If you best lock is 2000, and the other three below that you are probably in trouble in a 8 healer setup. We usually have three locks averaging around 2300 followed by most of the raid at 1800-2050dps.
Having 0 spell haste is pretty bad. You would probably get alot of benefit out of +10haste gems. Super Mana pots are usually better than destruction potions, I use 2 super manas and a destruction pot under heroism. Usually have 1 drum in my group so we drums at 1minute, 3minute, 5minute and I trinket at that time as well. | ||||||||||||
| #2518 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | dakalro |
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2. The difference in the number of shadow priests is minimal, your biggest drawback is wildly varying crit rates for the warlocks. 3. Drums help, a lot. Though my group only has 3 drums (I never had the heart to give up either tailoring or enchanting, too many recipes, too much time, too little time to grind at this moment due to work - had my consumables ready maybe a month before Sunwell). 4. Threat that's available to you. I can usually start nicely but get to 115%+ quite fast if I go all out, I don't even pop trinkets cause I'd be up there at less than 1 minute into the fight. Mostly LT if I have the mana deficit, watch the walls, slow down for a while - cast, don't try to beat the latency. At around 60-65% I shatter and pop everything pretty much going all out, trying to time for latency, trying to be at full mana right before. I know this limits my dps by a lot because I start out at over 2.2-2.3k but still nets me somewhere around 2.2k dps at the end, after hero (mostly dependant on luck with crits, I never seem to get a kill when I have some nice crit, at least not below my normal) with riding the line of 1.9-2k for the first part of the fight where I pretty much slack. Too bad attempts where tanks get nice threat we seem to always fail, it's a huge difference with what you can do when you can't reach over 100% no matter how hard you try. Hoping our huge batch of new healers get geared/accustomed to the right way of healing so we can have our Prot pally do it compared to him healing on his ZA alt. With the boss' attack speed pure Holy Shield consumption is ~1k tps. | ||||||||||||
| #2519 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
I'm sort of confused by agro on Felmyst. I will be at 100-120% of the tank while she is on the ground, then get up to about 140-150% when she flies. However, when she lands, she goes straight for the tank again. Is it possible you don't generate threat when she is flying? How have others been finding this fight threat-wise? When are you soul shattering. If you shatter at the first flight you can ss twice in the fight, or would you wait til later say just before a heroism.
Also this fight makes warlocks look great on dps meters | ||||||||||||
| #2520 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zasz |
I know about the imp but I dont have any points in demonoly, just normal imp. Besides, which tank does need an imp if a guild has BT on farm? And for skilling destru, I dont like playing like a mage. I enjoy being affliction with skilled malediction even if it means being behind the other locks.
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| #2521 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
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But if you're not going to spec into Shadow's Embrace 5/5, Malediction 3/3, and Improved Imp 2-3/3 you're a wasted space in a raid. Affliction will always perform below a properly played Destruction Warlock with equal gear. Even at my level of progression (which is below yours), this holds true. Also a shaman only benefits you with his Wrath of Air totem, and his Bloodlust/Heroism is largely lost on Affliction (with the high emphasis on DoTs that it has), while a Destruction Warlock gains a 30% (approximately, if no life tapping is needed of course) direct DPS increase along with Wrath of Air. | ||||||||||||
| #2522 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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You don't benefit much from crit, or hit. And while you do benefit from extra spellpower and heroism-haste, destro locks simply gain more from it. If you insist on wanting your question answered instead of us having to explain why it is a bad question, then here is your answer: Q: how do I convince my raid leader to put me in the dps group? A: I suggest bribery, blackmail, or learning how to play a drum. | ||||||||||||
| #2523 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
Seems we double posted. We make the same points, except I feel I must correct you here:
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| #2524 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Symplex |
It comes with the job of being the affliction lock, you're helping by providing that health buffer, the extra dps(cos/coe) and the 5% reduced physical, if you dont like being tossed into the most logical group then respec? The whole point of being affliction in a raiding environment is to be the "raid-buffer" not topping meters.
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| #2525 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos | |||||||||||||
| #2526 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | CHaoTiCTeX |
removed
Last edited by CHaoTiCTeX : 04/18/08 at 11:25 AM. Reason: double posted a point | ||||||||||||
| #2527 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Beardyhead |
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We keep our Aff/Ruin lock in DPS groups when farming BT. We trade the stamina gain, take the SE/Malediction, and ride it into SW. | ||||||||||||
| #2528 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Eradorn |
I am curious as to the last few posts about Aff locks. Many of the better Aff Lock Specs don't have improved imp, particularly the 40/0/21, yet you seem to make it sound as though somehow Imp Imp is manditory for Aff.
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| #2529 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Sumie |
Improved imp isn't really necessary imo. It's an extra 21 stam for the tank. But it's not the talent that makes affliction locks valuable, but rather the simple fact that they actually keep their imp out, as opposed to destruction locks.
I recently respecced to 40/0/21, after being 44/0/17 for the longest time, and the former definitely outperforms the latter once you're in T6 level gear. Just toss a corruption and start shadowbolting. I only cast Siphon Life when a) on the move, b) the encounter has a lot of raid damage, or c) the boss hits hard enough where I don't want to risk 5/5 SE falling off. Affl/Ruin may not top the charts like Destro, but it still does respectable damage, while still being able to get 5/5 SE and Malediction. | ||||||||||||
| #2530 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
With my sample entry-T6 gear level I get SL 2172 damage per cast time with shadowbolt 1320 damage per cast time, using ruin spec on the spreadsheet. I really doubt having any realistic level of gear closes that gap.
Even putting 1700 spell damage and 40% crit and 25% haste and 4pcT6 bonus still only brings shadowbolt to be ~60 damage per cast time under siphon life. Therefore I don't see any real reason to take SL out of your rotation at any gear level. Well except if you're so threat capped that the slight extra healing aggro is an issue (not realistic). Immolate required me to lower my crit to 37% and haste to 20% (keeping 1700 spell damage and 1628 fire damage) before it became a tiny bit above shadowbolt. So immolate is generally worth casting as well for any gear level if you're affliction. The only reason to not cast those would be debuff slots, but if you seriously have debuff slot issues you should check what other debuffs can be removed as well, and compare the DPS you lose from giving up that debuff slot to the DPS the other debuff is benefiting whoever is putting it up. | ||||||||||||
| #2531 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zasz |
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| #2532 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
I didn't actually equip it, I said IF I changed the spell damage crit and haste to be that high those would be the results, and I doubt anyone actually has such numbers which means SL and immo should be worth casting for all affliction warlocks. Note that with the actual gear I input (T6 entry level more or less) SL is very very worth casting, just used the much higher stats that probably nobody has to show that even with those stats you should cast immolate and SL.
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| #2533 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
With my gear, Immolate has a higher damage per cast time but yield lower dps for me. Perhaps because it is more mana intensive - I have to lifetap more often if I use it. Might not bother with siphon life if have too many debuffs - only a 20 dps loss for me.
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| #2534 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
Yeah you're right at the end you should look at the DPS difference triggering it on and off due to mana reasons, but even a 20 DPS gain is a DPS gain, and if someone is using that debuff slot for less than 20 DPS you should have priority on it rather than try to clear it. Remember people try do gem swaps that give less than 1 DPS just to do their best, no reason to automatically give up 20 dps just becuase something important got pushed off, unless there's no less important debuff that can be removed instead.
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| #2535 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Thanahtos |
While it's not mandatory per-say, if you're going to spec affliction anyways, why not get Improved Imp? Remember that you're not there for pure personal DPS, you're in a raid for "raid utility".
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| #2536 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zasz |
If an affliction wl wants to compete with destrus he has to use everything he got. I personally use a fixed rotation UI -> cor -> Imm -> SL -> SB spam. This way I can recast the first 3 all at once loosing nearly no tick, just the SL needs to be set up when its ticked out. Unfortunately for me I´m always on CoS duty so no CoP. As for destrus, I think its not worth using corr/Imm when you reached a certain DPS.
The other problem in our raid is, I cant go full dmg sometimes in fights like EoS, bloodboil or sometimes archi (depends if I have to run much) because our tanks cant keep up. If I have full support like elemental, shadow priest (in raid), drums, destrupot, trinkets and so on, I would be more dead than fighting. Other than that I´m happy to be affliction in fights like EoS because I dont kill myself if I get some good crits like our destrus :P Or supremus in the spank phase because I can do dmg while running after him. Destrus do an nearly instant dps stop once they have to run, I dont. My dps drops abit but doesnt stop. As for calculating each dps, guess I´m too stupid for that. I just work up my spelldmg and watch my timers. Just my POV. | ||||||||||||
| #2537 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
You are in the raid for Utility but you're still able to do DPS and as such should be trying to maximize it. Having an imp and SE is already the utility piece, after that you decide if being able to do more DPS from 3 talent points is worth the incremental stamina for the tanks.
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| #2538 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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This leaves you 2 points for non-DPS talents. The most considerable options for those are: 1. Intensity - probably the best choice for DPS, at least on more than 1 or 2 fights. However its actual value goes from nothing to a lot depending on what fight you're talking about. 2. Dark pact. Quite the same mana per global cooldown as life tap, but doesn't require someone to heal you. 3. CoEx - probably useless if you're not doing vashj anymore unless I'm missing the maybe-1-more-fight-where-it's-useable. 4. Improved healthstones - highly NOT recommended due to healthstone coordination, as destruction warlocks should cover the 2/2 and 1/2 healthstones leaving your job to be the 0/2 stone - they can't really put these points anyway in anything but pet-buffing talents for a pet that's getting sacrificed anyway... 5. Improved imp - While you can't keep your DPS and go 3/3, 2/3 is definitely an option. All of these can be argued as viable choices, and it's not really possible to bring any hard evidence that'll prove otherwise in an undisputeable way. However, the most reasonable choices are 2/2 intensity or 2/3 improved imp, and you'd have to choose wether 140 more HP for your tank is worth the pushback, based on what fight you're going to do. But at the end it's not a world of a difference due to it not being as important for affliction and even on fights where it does matter it's probably not that huge, and 140 extra HP on the tank isn't amazing either. Bottom line is just becuase you're raid utility spec with shadow embrace doesn't mean you should discard all raid DPS talents. If you think 140 HP on the tank is more important than pushback protection then go for it, but don't do it becuase you don't care about your DPS, but rather because you considered the benefit VS the cost and decided that your raid is better off with 140 HP on the tank than whatever DPS is lost by the pushbacks you're going to take. 3/3 improved imp is not possible without some noticeable gimp to DPS - some kind of important DPS talent needs to be dropped and I really can't think of a fight where it would be worthwhile to pay that cost to get 3/3 improved imp. Again remember that while affliction is utility, it's still supposed to do DPS while doing that utility. Giving up 70-210 HP to increase your DPS in a noticeable way is quite acceptable, as you're still providing the primary raid benefits of shadow embrace (and non-improved imp) affliction is meant to provide. Obviously as an affliction warlock you'll always be on CoS duty. Your CoS is better than everyone's else and there is absolutely no reason to ever bring more than 1 affliction warlock (except for having skill+attendance+gear+respec cost issues all at the same time). While affliction at high gear levels is still not worth speccing into just for malediction (it's actually a total raid DPS loss at the higher gear levels even if it's lower than 4/5 T6), since, as I said, the best way to DPS while providing shadow embrace is to spec affliction, there isn't really a reason not to grab that talent and use it. It's not like other warlocks get to use damage curses unless you run with more than 3 warlocks and/or less than 2 fire mages. Last edited by galzohar : 04/18/08 at 7:15 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2539 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zasz |
Thats the thing that bothers me. I run CoS because I skilled it like the other affliction warlock and our destrus can sometimes use CoA. WTF?! Then ppl complain that I dont do enough dmg when I cant use the full arsenal of spells. I got used to do CoS now and I even removed the 2 points in Improved curse of agony to get 3 points in Contagation. But the main thought that destruction warlocks use damage curses and affliction dont sounds plain wrong to me.
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| #2540 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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Also you should bear in mind that destro has an incredibly good CoD. No well equipped destro warlock should use CoA over it, unless the target won't live 60 seconds, or there is a threat wipe. Curse of Doom isn't affected by Shadow Mastery but Demonic Sacrifice does affect it. Let me clarify just how good CoS is. Assuming there is 5000 shadow dps, CoS is equivalent to the following: "Target takes 500 damage per second for 5 minutes". Good luck beating that with any other curse. Malediction CoS vs imp CoA: For Malediction CoS + destro CoD to be outperformed by affliction CoA and destro CoS in a 5000 shadow dps scenario, you'd have to beat the 180dps that Malediction gives + the 10-12k damage per minute for the destro's CoD + the extra shadow bolt that you lose because of CoA refreshes. Rough overview: Damage per minute: scenario 1: 13% CoS + CoD 13% CoS adds 680dps or 40800 per minute. CoD adds about 11200 per minute or 52000 damage total Lost cast time per minute: 1.5s due to CoD Damage per minute: scenario 2: 10% CoS + affliction CoA 10% CoS adds 500 dps or 30000 per minute. Affliction lock gets 2.5x CoA in. lost cast time: 3.75s (difference is about a shadow bolt, considering CoA is more expensive than CoD, let's assume 3000 damage) Roughly speaking, your CoA needs to hit for 10 000 in total. (40800 + 11200 + 3000 - 30000) / 2.5 for it to be equal. This is actually a bit closer than I expected it to be. | ||||||||||||
| #2541 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
In other words, you can't expect your raid to have 10% CoS instead of 13% CoS just because you want to get more personal DPS, even though your amped CoD is probably better than a non-amped one - it's just not enough to make up for the weaker CoS which will cause all shadow users in your raid to lose damage.
As for the other affliction warlock, not only you shouldn't have brought a 2nd affliction warlock in the firstplace (have him spec destruction so he can do some actual DPS or bring a better DPSer in his place), if you're alreayd bringing him he should be on CoE duty, and a destruction warlock on CoR. If you see warlocks regularly using damage curses you're probably not running with CoS+CoR+CoE which is a serious lack of organization from your raid leaders. CoR always wins on the damage curses (have a tank or dps warrior spec 5/5 improved demo shout to negate its attack power effect) and CoE wins in most raid setups. Anyway if personal DPS is what you're looking for, you picked wrong spec (and/or wrong game...). | ||||||||||||
| #2542 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | dakalro |
At this point ig the game with decent ele/shadow dps-ers, CoS/CoE is better than damage curse even with just 1 of that damage type.
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| #2543 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Smurrf |
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I have a 44/0/17 spec, that gives me the absolute most in threat reduction talents possible from the destruction tree. I guarantee, if I didn't have Destructive Reach, I would be dead on the floor about half the fights out there. My threat as an affliction lock is usually right up there behind whoever's doing the tanking, especially on longer fights. Certain ones, obviously, there's no issue on...but others? I'm doing soulshatter twice if the fight's long enough...the bonus reduction in threat provided from Dest Reach is just absolutely necessary for me. As far as the affliction tree goes...the only point that I can find that I would be able to free up to put into the imp is the point in Curse of Exhaustion...and since we're just starting Vashj, that's not necessarily an option at the moment. Every other point is in something that boosts the damage I cause, or helps the raid in some way. (And before you mention it, yes, I have points in CoA...because I solo as well, and hate respeccing. Not only that, but those two points are going to get spent somewhere in the first three tiers anyway, due to how the affliction tree is set up.) I can't even find pts to put into IHoT like I usually like to have. Although, as soon as we move out of SSC, that pt in CoEx is going straight into Devastation for that last pt of crit chance for SB. As far as the imp goes, untalented he provides 70 stam, which gets boosted by all the various raid buffs the tanks have. An additional 21 stam (well, more like 26-27 or so, with raid buffs) would be nice, but it's not worth the loss of anything else I have currently, and is only a nice buffer at this point. To answer the question of 'you're not there for personal DPS'...that has always read to me like 'you can't do maximum DPS like your brethren can, so you might as well lop off a leg and both arms, and just stand there. Don't die, just...be there, and stay out of the way.' Screw that. I might not be able to top the meters, but on most boss fights, I'm still hitting around 1050-1100 dps, and usually end up in the top 7 or so on the list of damage done at the end of the night...and in about half the boss fights, I'm in the top 3-4 for both DPS & damage done. Am I really supposed to nerf myself for an additional 2-300 hp for 4 other people? | ||||||||||||
| #2544 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
Your spec has shadowburn which is a lot less useful than 1% extra crit, and as already said 70 more HP on the tank may be more useful than dark pact considering dark pact will rarely give any DPS boost (you'd have to run oom at the same time as you're being low on HP and not getting healed). All in all as I said getting imp imp is very argueable, but at least that point in shadowburn is quite wasted.
Even if you don't have threat issues, maxing your range is quite important as far as my raiding experience can tell. Had countless times where my main spells that were talent-enhanced were in range and other spells weren't (so without the talent I'd have to move) and other times where I wished my spells had that extra yard on them. | ||||||||||||
| #2545 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Smurrf |
I'll say again:
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Dark Pact is, once again, extremely useful while soloing...and I'll use DP in place of a mana pot at the beginning of a long fight, so that healers can concentrate their attention elsewhere. When your MT is hitting around 20k HP, an extra 300 (at most) HP isn't going to really make that much of a difference, and to me, is not worth those talent points. Like I said, once we get done with Vashj, CoEx is going right back into Devastation anyway...until then, I'm happy with what I have. | ||||||||||||
| #2546 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Stilfor |
Is anyone else having serious threat issues now with all this haste? Being a LW in a mostly LW group I'm basically sitting at 290 haste at all times peaking at 465 haste (1600 shadow, 34% crit) and almost always threat capped. I think we're going to start seeing some huge threat issues as we progress further through Sunwell and our hastened threat scales faster than our tank's.
Edit: We generally have 2 MDs and I know our tanks don't suck. It's just started being a huge issue since 2.4 and I gained ~180 haste between gear and drums. Last edited by Stilfor : 04/19/08 at 12:32 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2547 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
If you're saying there are times where you just stand there and do nothing because you are threatcapped then something is wrong. TA for first 30 secs of each fight makes it virtually impossible to pull agro. Of the first 3 bosses, the only one I regularly soulshatter on is Felmyst.
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| #2548 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Exilersess |
TA? whats that? I too have alot of threat issues on a decent amount of fights in bt/za(timed events)/and hyjal. Our guild is working on the 1st boss in sunwell, and I havn't really had threat issues there since you have 2 different targets to dps back and forth on.
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| #2549 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Caffeine |
Tranquil Air Totem
Rochan, and to other Warlocks on Brutallus, do you really never run into threat issues? I tend to wait to start dps for an awful long time, about 20 to 25 seconds or 25k-30k tank threat. It's usually ok, but sometimes it isn't. Seems like a lot of wasted dps from waiting as well. | ||||||||||||
| #2550 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | PSGarak |
Tranquil Air Totem. There's a critical point where the extra DPS time from TA totem outweighs the extra 100 damage from Wrath of Air totem, and that critical point is not very far past the threat cieling. If you can reach that threat cieling without the 100 spell damage, then you are better off with the 20% agro reduction. Although, as Rochan points out, a smart shaman can swap from one to the other and let you ride that line exceedingly close.
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| #2551 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
It not only depends on your threat, the 100 damage affects the whole party so it's actually more complicated than that if you're the only one being threat capped. But yeah tranquil air and going all out is generally better than threat capping with WoA. If you just slow down 5% of your DPS you more or less negated the effect of the WoA anyway. If you slow down less than that (and the rest of your party is about the same as you) mixing totems is a good thing. Anything more complex and you'll have to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis, which is actually pretty complicated considering tank threat is very hard to predict especially from a tanks that don't play 100% perfect and can't tell you their expected TPS output.
Anyway if you just ask people who else is having threat issues, you'll find very varying responses. Some pull aggro with 1000 DPS and some never pull aggro with 2000 DPS. It really depends on your tank (skill>gear choices>gear level, but all of those matter). | ||||||||||||
| #2552 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Nas |
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For the first minute or so, however, we have our Elemental Shaman drop tranquil air totem in a group with three Warlocks to maximize our DPS during that period of time, the moment MT1 taunts Brutallus back to him Wrath of Air is dropped and there is no need to worry about threat at all past that point. | ||||||||||||
| #2553 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | CHaoTiCTeX |
I have a quick question, does anyone know the proc rate / ppm of the Tier 4 2 piece bonus?
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| #2554 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
This actually doesn't work. Taunt gives you as much threat as the person with current aggro has, not the highest person on threat. If it did do what you claim it does, on any fight (and trash mob) where the boss is not immune to taunt you could go all out and just have the tank generate threat using nothing but taunt never losing aggro due to the 110%/130% rule.
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| #2555 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | jendead |
I have a question about using Infernal on Brutallus (I saw it mentioned earlier in the thread). My raid leaders are wary of letting me do this because they're worried it's going to break early and wreak havoc. The tooltip claims that the initial enslave is for 5 minutes - is there ANY possible chance of not having the full duration when you summon it?
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| #2556 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2557 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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| #2558 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Fafhrd |
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- have Shadowpriest? +100 dps - have Wrath of air totem? +100 dps - Bloodlust? +60 dps - Drums of Battle? +25 dps/drum - Moonkin aura? +100 dps - using Spellstrike Pants even though you aren't a tailor? -150 dps (checked your armory) | ||||||||||||
| #2559 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ◊ Eph |
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| #2560 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | jendead |
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| #2561 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Akj |
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| #2562 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | BugRoger |
I can confirm that an airburst on Archimonde breaks the enslave. The infernal starts to attack the raid... Just found that out 1h ago :p
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| #2563 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Ammanas |
Regarding threat on Brutallus, we have our feral tank start off tanking him and blow a BL in his group right off the start. It helps a lot with threat in the beginning (especially since we usually have a hunter in the group too MDing).
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| #2564 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
Helps with threat yeah, but at a major DPS cost, so consider carefully before you decide to BL tanks.
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| #2565 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Ammanas |
It was worth it for us, the extra DPS time that the warlocks/mages got was well worth using a BL in the tank group. We still had 4 other BLs available since we were running 4 resto/1 enh shaman. It also wasn't a completely wasted bloodlust since our tank group did have two hunters in it (feral/prot warr/resto sham GoA/2x hunter).
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| #2566 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Nas |
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As such, what I usually do on Brutallus, I start off by going all out, odds are I'll be close to pulling aggro within the first 10% of the boss's health due to the aforementioned reasons, at which point I shatter just to buy the tanks more time to settle into their optimal TPS rotation with all debuffs up - from that point onwards I simply go all out without the fear of pulling aggro, and that has worked for me over the past two kills. | ||||||||||||
| #2567 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | SRneo |
Hai Guys,
I know this is way off topic and sorry for it, (I'm a lower tiered guy, what can i say lol.) Anyways, I was hoping to get a couple of you guys to check out my armory. I've followed the Leuliar DPS spreadsheet and have gotten everything I could get my hands on that was an upgrade. I was just wondering if you guys had any input on whether I should change some of the gear and/or gems. We're 5/6 SSC and havent really touched TK except for VR. So keep that in mind when you tell me what I need to get and stuff. Thanks! | ||||||||||||
| #2568 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 Edited on *estimate*<=2.0.0 | Lokag |
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You've made two 'bad' (YMMV) choices for the hands and robes. The robes are one of these "OMG 50 crit and 60 damage!!!" items which really aren't as good as they look. You should have just gotten the Scarlet robes from heroic MgT and gemmed for hit. Otherwise you could have taken the +hit robes from the badge endor. Studious wraps would have done much the same as your current gloves for a drop of maybe 3 or 4 dps but saving 15 badges for an epic gem or something else later on. If you're just 5/6 SSC and 1/4 TK focus on just getting hit, damage and crit up, leave haste for T6 content. Though I have to admit I'm just as guilty to be just short on hit (by 2 and it's getting fixed this week) and having haste a bit too early (we've just done Kael and I was capernian tank so respecced to fire destro to avoid nether protection procs so have the ZA necklace instead of the KZ one) Otherwise IMO it looks fine. You're fire destruction so I assume you have other shadow destruction warlocks? Last edited by Lokag : Today at 4:21 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2569 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | sarf |
In order to make up for your hit deficit, you either need to do some item swapping or you can do some gemswapping (just make another pair of pants) - using veiled noble topazes in your pants, you'll lose 12 spelldamage and gain 12 hit, or you can swap out your wand for [Carved Witch Doctor's Stick] (gemmed with VNT). You could also trade your offhand for a [Jewel of Infinite Possibilities] (requires good luck in Kara though).
That said, one of your best long-term investments will probably be swapping your robe for [Shroud of the Lore`nial] until you gain enough hit rating to not need it anymore (I know - it hurts getting those badges again, but it will give you more options). However, if you want a more bite-sized route, I'd say that by making new [Spellstrike Pants] (VNT gemmed) & [Carved Witch Doctor's Stick] (VNT gem) route you will have a decent amount of options as you gear your way upwards - this may be influenced by me having an Alchemist, though. | ||||||||||||
| #2570 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | ninielin |
you guys are going way too far just to be hit capped.... The 22 hit he is missing ( or the 2 hit of the poster above lol) won't change his dps. I only started getting hit capped once we killed illidan and that never stopped me from beeing 1 on the DM all the way from gruul to kalec. hovered between 170 and 190 hit. Its the cheapest stat as far as dps goes but thats about it.
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| #2571 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Madlax |
I have to agree there. Hit is simply the cheapest stat, but that makes it highly desirable.
Whether you take 12hit rating, 15spellhaste or ~22damage(or a whooping 28 crit as fire destro) doesn´t particularly matter for the DPS sustained. On a 2nd note, I found Infernal - WWS and the Infernal damage looked really interesting, even when pulling ~800k on Brutallus that would be a fair trade off. Anyone can verify if those WWS are accurare for a single Infernal? | ||||||||||||
| #2572 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Roywyn |
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If you check the Immolation - Spells - World of Warcraft timing, you see that it's 4 infernals (2 and 2 ticking at the same time stamps). Makes 55k damage per Infernal. | ||||||||||||
| #2573 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 Edited on *estimate*<=2.0.0 | Madlax |
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#Edit for the post-poster: My bad, the last time I summoned an infernal for purposes must have been 100 days played ago. Last edited by Madlax : Today at 10:00 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2574 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | dakalro |
No, it makes it 55k damage on a 2 sec cast, that's high enough dpct to make it worth using. It does not remove Demonic Sacrifice.
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| #2575 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | galzohar |
No reason not to gem for hit if you're not hit capped. Granted trading 20 spell damage for the missing 20 hit rating won't do anywhere near from turning you from a nub into a DPS machine, but it's a step in the right direction. To do good DPS you'll obviously also have to take a serious look at how you're actually playing, how much time you're wasting not attacking or lifetapping at bad times etc (with a major stress on the time spent not attacking as that's the #1 thing that causes people to do low dps).
Note that if you're only 2 hit rating short, while getting those 2 hit rating can be a good thing, if it costs you 4 spell damage (for example by swapping a 9 damage gem to a 5 dmg 4 hit gem) it's just not worth it, and costs 50g on top. Hit is better per itemization point, as much as it's not far from twice as good, but it's not twice as good so 2 dmg > 1 hit no matter what hit rating you have. | ||||||||||||
| #2576 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
Yeah, I gotta agree with the latter sentiments. The two hit-cap nuts are giving terrible advice. For my dps setup, Shroud of Lore'nial will give only 3 dps more than Tormented Demonsoul Robes. That is NEVER worth 100 badges. I'd rather trade them for vortexes and sell for gold. Being hitcapped is nice, but only if it's more realistic dps. We aren't tanks were hitting has a very important secondary characteristic. Or like feral cats where missing that mangle might mess up your rotation because you weren't expecting. Miss a shadowbolt? So what?
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| #2577 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | dakalro |
Then think about it this way, 1% under hitcap is doubling your chance for your spells to be resisted. Each % under hitcap increases the chance for your spells to be resisted by 100%.
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| #2578 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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Typically you gem for hit since you're effectively trading on a one-for-one basis there, and you more or less pick gems so you're as close to cap as possible without overshooting it. In that scenario, hit is the best choice. But I really wouldn't advocate making heavy sacrifices for hit elsewhere. In fact, I myself am very much hit capped at the moment and would kill for some good items that didn't have hit all over them. | ||||||||||||
| #2579 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Dancing Wu Li Master |
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| #2580 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | SRneo |
So after reading all the posts after mine, I assume the Leuliar Spreadsheet is not the way to go to determine what's best for my dps? I've done all the combinations with badge/crafted/raid drops and the gear I have now minus the T5 shoulders (All yellow sockets being Reckless Pyrestone lol) provided me with the highest number. Should I throw all that DPS spreadsheet junk out and just focus on hit cap and dmg?
BTW, I'm shadow destruction and yes, it told me the Subjugation Neck and Fetish were the best neck and OH I could have atm. | ||||||||||||
| #2581 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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Of course if you have the choice wether to lose 20 spell damage to get 15 hit rating from 1 item (for example, glove enchant), it's worse than switching a 9 damage gem to a 8 hit gem, and both are worse than swapping 2 9 damage gems to 2 5dmg/4hit gems. Eventually all these options will up your DPS, but if the better ones already cap your hit you should take them. If they don't cap you, you should take everything (that's not losing ~1.7-1.8 or more spell damage per hit rating gain) that gives hit. As for boss VS trash, if you care so much about trash DPS get a 2nd gearset where possible, but don't let it gimp your boss DPS if you care at all about progression. How many time did your progression stop because you cleared trash 1% slower? How many times did you wipe with the boss at 1%, stopping your progression (and farming for that matter)? Not to mention on trash a very significant portion of the time is spent walking around, organizing the pulls and simply switching targets (you'll be amazed at how much time you spend not casting between target switches if you weren't aware of the enourmous amount of time wasted on that beforehand) - better DPS doesn't speed that portion up which means 1% DPS increase on trash is far less than 1% trash clearing speed increase, while 1% more DPS on the boss is almost 1% faster boss killing and less chance for wipes. In other words, if you can get alternate gear for trash then cool, otherwise just focus on boss gear as it's much more important. For those who claim it's fine to run 20 hit rating short, while it won't turn you from a terrible to a great DPSer, there's pretty much no gear level in the whole game where it's worth it to be under the hit cap. Every gear level has options that allow you to cap your hit in a way that increases DPS - be it gems or actual items. I'm not talking about that "I only have 200 hit rating" as that obviously doesn't matter much (equipping a hit item in this case will probably cause a loss of at least 4 spell damage, which isn't worth it for only 2 hit rating), but when you're 20 hit rating short of the cap you did something wrong with your gearing. | ||||||||||||
| #2582 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
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For example it can tell you that hit is so great you should cap it, but it can't tell you if you should use 15 hit rating on gloves or a hit gem to cap your hit - while obviously the hit gem is better. Some things you just have to come up with yourself, but the leulier spreadsheet is very helpful at knowing what to look for and getting the final DPS you should expect to see in game if you actually play perfectly in perfect conditions (and it's not like reality conditions and bad play on your end are going to matter at what are the best items, more likely they'll just decrease your DPS no matter what you wear so the spreadsheet's item choices are still useful). | ||||||||||||
| #2583 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Lacky |
Well with all this talk about the spreadsheet I want to verify some geming. As a general rule what is the best gem when you are hit caped(take out socket bonuses).
+9 spell dmg +5 spell dmg/+4 crit +5 spell dmg/+4 haste | ||||||||||||
| #2584 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
+4 haste/+5 dmg is probably optimal, but good luck finding someone to cut those.
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| #2585 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | clavarnway |
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WoW Forums -> Follow up on a ticket / escalation process? Pity...it's good. | ||||||||||||
| #2586 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Eradorn |
Immolate?
Several of the posters talking about the Aff locks said that they cast Immolate. The guide doesn't suggest this, and I would think that with Shadow Power, your cast time and mana would be better served casting another SB.
Yes, no, maybeso? | ||||||||||||
| #2587 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Melbuframa |
When I was Aff Leuliar's had it as a DPS increase, so I used it. Gear was the same as I have on now except I used FSW boots and Timbal’s instead of Icon
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| #2588 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zargouhl |
Spec for Leo-lock-tank
I have a scenario for you guys, then a couple questions.
I'm sitting on ~1230 spell dmg, hit capped. I'm the lock-tank on Leotheras(we haven't gotten to Vashj yet, but we're close), and I've been running a 7/44/10 spec, based on Felguard/utility. Now my problem is I'd really like to get my dps higher. Even on the felguard spec I do pretty nice dps, but when we hit Vashj I was thinking a 0/40/21 spec would be better, thus crit will be become a larger focus for me. I'm currently geared like an afflic lock so my question is, when I move to a ruin-based spec how do I compare spell dmg to crit on a point to point basis? | ||||||||||||
| #2589 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
This is obviously about destruction, NOT affliction:
Since 1 haste is better than 1 spell damage for just about any gear setup, taking advantage of the "rounding error" of the 5 damage 4 haste gems is probably optimal when you can't use any more hit. Keep in mind, though, that if gemming enough 9 damage 4 hit gems allows you to take off a +hit item and wear a better item instead, you should consider that option as in some cases it's better than wearing a hit item and gemming for damage/haste. Looking at Lacky's armory though doesn't show any item where the above would be applicable so 5dmg/4haste gems would be optimal in this case. | ||||||||||||
| #2590 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
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| #2591 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Zargouhl |
hmm, so another question then...assuming I stay FG spec(have to for leo anyway), am I better off with the 7 points in affliction or putting those into dest for the extra crit?
and on another question, how do destruction locks compare spell dmg vs crit? | ||||||||||||
| #2592 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | galzohar |
1 damage is about as good as 1 crit rating (making spell damage better use of itemization points), but it could be a little bit more or less depending on your current gear and the warlock/shadowpriest setup (due to ISB).
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| #2593 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Vlar |
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Firstly, there are some Shadow damage pieces that last us for a long time (Kara neck, Boots from Hydross, Cape from MH/BT trash) as such most locks try to pick them up with the side effect of +shadow being higher than +fire. Secondly, Immolate has a lower coefficient due to its two-part effect. The first part is also effected by its ability to crit, which is something that tends to be lacking. | ||||||||||||
| #2594 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Andersnordic |
Which build (+pet) is considered superior when tanking Alythess?
I browsed through and was surprised to see a consensus hasn't been made. | ||||||||||||
| #2595 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Pentamorfi |
The build and pet that best suits your guild and your lock, there's no one answer to that. We're using a 21/40 lock with an imp out.
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| #2596 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Smurrf |
A guildmate of mine runs the usual 0/21/40 spec, but for whatever reason his DPS & damage done just isn't where it should be. I asked him about it a couple of times, and his response was that he had to scale back, because he kept on pulling aggro off the tanks, especially on trash. I wasn't really sure how to answer him, because I've been affliction since, oh, forever.
My question is this: How do SB nukers deal with the huge amount of threat they can pull down? When a Shadow Bolt can hit (and crit) for 6k or so regularly, that does tend to stack up. Do you use a different sac for trash? Or do you simply wait a little longer to go in (even though by the time you're able to start casting, the mob is already down half his health)? Currently, in mid T5, as an affliction lock, I'm out DPSing and out damaging him, and I KNOW that can't be right. He's been going with a felhunter sac (I think that's the right one, anyways) so as to not have to worry about his mana bar at all, and admittedly that has raised him up more even with me, but I know that's not necessarily the best answer. | ||||||||||||
| #2597 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kedjim |
I swapped from Affliction to 21/40 a couple months ago, and I haven't noticed any sort of increased threat generation other than from the increased dps. Yes, Destro threat can be bursty, but if he's having problems, have him either split his first 15 seconds swapping between different tank targets, or have the tank that builds threat fastest tank the first kill target. Another thing that might be getting him is if he pops something like an Icon of the Silver Crescent at the pull. Save the trinket for when threat gets a little more established.
I don't think there's ever a reason to use a Felhunter sac on trash, unless there's a mana burn. I always run a Succubus sac, since almost no trash pulls in SSC/TK last long enough to even need to lifetap more than once or twice. Just spam shadow bolts, tap to equal life/mana, and eat/drink. | ||||||||||||
| #2598 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Ele' |
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Something like two weeks ago, a Doomguard spawned during our Akama fight (due to a Curse of Doom killing an add). Appart from the fact that it was very funny, we noted something weird. The first enslave had a 5 minutes duration (yeah, without CoS or anything), the following one stayed for about half this duration, and so on. So, we decided that another warlock would enslave it, as he should not have any DR on this demon. So I ban the poor thing before my fellow raiders tear it to pieces, my warlock friend try to enslave it, but the spell failed. The reason for the spell failure was that the target was already taped by someone else, as if the other warlock was not in my party (to be exact, he was in my raid AND in my party). Did I miss the memo about being unable to enslave a demon that was previously enslaved by someone else in your group ? | ||||||||||||
| #2599 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | InterSlayer |
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Don't forget, tanks are part of the picture too. Make sure you're checking with other DPS and seeing if they are dialing it back a bit or having to use their threat-reduction abilities too often. If they are, it might be a sign your tank isn't generating enough threat. | ||||||||||||
| #2600 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Kedjim |
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| #2601 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
Check the section "Immolate vs Shadow Bolt". It depends on your specific gear and spec.
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| #2602 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Silverstorm |
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| #2603 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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My guess is he's making excuses for being lazy, clueless, or afk. Have him spam agony on all tanked trash at the start of the pull. It does more damage overall, divides threat and avoids initial threat bursts. Have him watch Omen on bosses and use Omen yourself to monitor his threat. If he really is close to tank threat: there are plenty of good posts in this threat that explain how to mitigate threat, but for SB spam is basically comes down to what people already said. Some quick tips for this: On trash: dps multiple targets to avoid threat issues on bosses: don't use affliction damage (so CoE or CoR instead of CoD), since it's higher threat for destrolocks, use Life Tap whenever not full on mana and time your cooldowns and Soulshatter well. Start with a curse and an immolate to avoid initial threat bursts. | ||||||||||||
| #2604 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Crepe |
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One thing to note, affliction is usually pretty good on raid trash. You've got lots of targets to dot up, your threat is less spikey, you start damage from the pull rather than waiting on tanks, and you're usually armed with less +spellhit (which is wasted on trash). If he's still having problems on bosses with threat, things to examine include: 1. Does he have Destructive Reach? 2. Does he have BoS (you want this over all other blessings)? 3. Is he popping trinkets at the start of a pull? 4. Before you start blaming tanks, are other direct damage DPS having threat issues? If so, make sure tanks are they using their rage effectively. *insert numerous tips about improving tank threat here; there's even a thread for it* I did have monstrous threat issues at the start-to-middle of T5, but those mostly evaporated as our tanks grew more comfortable with TBC mechanics, their gear increased, and we ditched KTM for Omen. Play it safe and learn to love Soul Shatter. ![]()
One other thing about FH sac - each tick generates threat. I think it's 1 threat/MP, but I could be mistaken about the exact values. While it's probably not the 15% extra threat that the Suc sac is doing, it's definitely not the best investment in terms of damage/threat generated. EDIT: I find that for both Kaz'rogal and EoS, Super Mana pots + Suc sac out DPS FH by a large margin. You do have to LT more, but the 15% damage still wins out. Maaaaaaaybe Mama due to the stupidity of resist gear, but even then, I doubt it. | ||||||||||||
| #2605 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Fudder |
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I believe they do, actually. | ||||||||||||
| #2606 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | sarf |
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Besides, having a few more items in your wardrobe shouldn't be that much of a bother for a pure DPS class, now should it? Thread cost is not high on my server due to an amazing amount of people getting motes of mana - the nether is mostly opportunity (or 70-80G in gold) cost since I've been doing heroics for a while, and the nether market isn't very good on my server (low price, low availability, people prefer doing stuff out of mats ground out on their own, I guess). That said, you're most probably right. I just don't like destroying invested assets, even if it is just a few 50-60 gold gems (current price for a VNT on my server). Also, getting the shroud - while costly - can be worth it if it allows you to exchange items from other slots. I'm certainly not a spellhit nut, but more options is always better than less - the only one who can determine whether the cost of more options is worth it is you. | ||||||||||||
| #2607 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
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| #2608 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda | |||||||||||||
| #2609 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Smurrf |
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Actually, it's a very tank-ish solution. To explain further...one of the worst habits a tank can have is to get rid of an item (whether by vendoring or DE) once you've replaced it. The problem? Tank items have different stats. Some have more defense, some have more dodge, etc. Especially when you speak of defense numbers, there comes a point in time where in order to be able to wear upgrade XXX, you have to downgrade another slot to item YYY, to make sure that you're still uncrittable, or uncrushable, depending on the stats you're talking about. Even months after you upgrade an item, you'll realize that that trinket, or that shield, actually still has relevance for this fight or that encounter. I understand what he's saying here. Keeping items that are gemmed and enchanted out for one set of stats, while building up or purchasing another item in the same slot for different stats, allows maximum versatility. Is it expensive to do? It can be. But he did mention friends who had available CD's, which certainly mitigates the cost. And you never know, there may come a point in time where having that extra set of pants (or whatever) on hand may save him a lot of time in the future. And that may be worth the cost of building up additional items now. Keep in mind, too, that he was originally answering to someone else looking for suggestions. It'll depend on how that person weighs their time vs their available cash. If they have the time to grind out badges, then it's a moot point. If he happens to be someone who's already booked out, but has a decent cash supply, then it might make more sense for the person in question to simply make what he needs to. Finally, he's not saying that spending 1400g is cheaper than regemming at all, unless I completely missed something in between. He's saying it's better to pay a large amount upfront, than to have to worry later on down the road about regemming every single time a person gets an upgrade. Think about it like this: You gem out your belt, and at the time, you need hit. So you gem for such. Then you get an upgrade for your bracers that has more hit, so you gem the belt for crit. Then a neckpiece comes along that upgrades your crit, so now you want to gem the belt for haste. Over time, given enough upgrades, you could feasibly spend a good amount regemming each and every time. A couple of items held in reserve that are either duplicates (through badge purchases or drops from farmed bosses) or just plain sidegrades, set for different stats, would allow you to not have to worry about either having a huge stash of gems on hand, or have to worry about finding a gem and/or somone to cut it each time you get an upgrade. | ||||||||||||
| #2610 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | calisti |
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And to answer your earlier question, using a fel guard on Vashj is viable if you have the 2 piece T5 bonus. Keep your pet away from people with static charge and you should be fine. | ||||||||||||
| #2611 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
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When you're just starting out, you won't really have much choice what gear to use. For me this was before they even made spell hit gems, and it's not like you'll have to min/max your gear to beat Gruul. As you gear up you'll get more items that have different stats and you can swap them out. I regularly swap out maybe 5-6 items depending on the situation. Also it doesn't matter if he already has the mats for the item. It doesn't make it "free", he is still using those mats therefore he is spending the money. | ||||||||||||
| #2612 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Smurrf |
I fail to see how having multiples of the same item is a sin.
And you're still missing the point. No one ever said it was free. No one ever said it was even remotely cheaper. What was stated was that there's basically a convenience factor that you're paying for. By looking and planning ahead, one can eliminate some fair amount of bother. If you're that worried that it's costing too much, simply switch it to drops. If you're running enough instances/raids, there's going to come a point in time where you're going to see an item drop that you already wear, that has a lot of customizable options. Lots of sockets, a nice bonus, and happens to be a slot with some flexibility in enchanting. Why not snag it, especially if there's no penalty (as in, it's just going to be a shard if you don't take it) and set it up to switch out if the situation comes up? Don't just look at it from one perspective, take a step back and look at it from another angle. Is it, perhaps, expensive? Possibly, depending on the slot and how you obtain an item. Is it a sin, is it stupid, is it someone being a dumbass? No, and there's no need to classify it as such. There's more than one way to do things, and personal priority will play a big part in how that's done. | ||||||||||||
| #2613 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Liminality |
i think someone is forgetting that we are warlocks
there is only going to be one way to maximize DPS... options are completely irrelevant. Exceptions being like a tanking set or sperate boss and trash sets. Last edited by Liminality : 04/23/08 at 2:54 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2614 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | rochan |
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Liminality - you forget about elemental shaman. If you have one you can try and cut 3-4% hit from your gear and optimize it that way. Some fights you may want more HP, that sort of thing. | ||||||||||||
| #2615 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Bolche |
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- Improve significantly the ISB uptime (2-4%) and thus raid DPS. - has a better burst dps. They are many fight where you have free time to LT (time where your LT are not taken from your nuking time). | ||||||||||||
| #2616 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | bffjil |
hmm
I am unable to start my own thread because I have not yet reached the new user limit. I will post this here and hopefully be able to get a response in this clutter of affliction talk. I recently decided to spec fire destruction and my dps has seen a pretty noticable upgrade.
I have searched the forums for a couple days and have not been able to find a pure answer with any proof of what I am about to ask. (yes I have tried searching for every combination of destruction warlocks in pve and spell haste you can think of) Here is my question. Is there a specific line playing fire destro that is when haste hits a diminishing return and starts becoming worth less than spell damage. From the information I have gathered as of right now 1 spell haste is more dps than one damage but people are continuously arguing over this. I know elemental shamans have a graph showing this but do warlocks? or is there no diminishing returns even considering mana issues? | ||||||||||||
| #2617 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2618 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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I would very much like it if people tried to give advice in a constructive atmosphere. (not intended for just the OP) To be fair, I wouldn't recommend making [Pattern: Spellstrike Pants] twice just so you could save money on regemming. They are kind of expensive. Typically, when I get an upgrade that lowers my stamina, I'll keep the old bit around so I have a stamina set. And of course it pays to have some spare bits so you can put yourself close to the hit cap, even when there's no elemental shaman. | ||||||||||||
| #2619 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trospar |
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If you have the money/time/mats, I could definitely see making another set of [Spellstrike Pants]. An easier option would be to run Kara and grab some [Trial-Fire Trousers]. | ||||||||||||
| #2620 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Eriksen |
Hello fellow Warlocks.
I have just rerolled warlock after being priest (Eriksen) since release. I am a Guild Master of the raiding guild Seven on Turalyon. The fact that it is very hard getting "good" raiding warlocks, we decided for me to reroll. Picked up a dusty 70 warlock and started to gear him up about 3-4 weeks ago and this is my current situation The World of Warcraft Armory I have been reading this forum ever since and it has helped me alot. Since I have played healer all the time, I like playing my warlock in a "healer-friendly" way. and ended up on 7/44/10 I just love this spec and playstyle. But.... in tems of theorycrafting and optimalization I consider myself a "noob" warlock and I want to be as best as possible. Atm my goal is the 75 badge reward boots and the class trinket from Solarian, sadly we dont officially raid TK anymore, so I try killing her with unofficial raids and hope for my luck. At this stage we have killed in BT up to supremus and MH currently on 4th boss. Nevertheless. If it is not too much to ask, are there anyone out there with greater experience that can guide and direct me abit more? I want the spec I have atm, or very similar. But items and sockets im not 100% sure of. Everything up to mid BT/MH is within my reach, I am just not sure if I am making the right choices. Any good and usefull tips and hints are much appretiated by this new warlock Kind Regards, Neskire. | ||||||||||||
| #2621 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Demoniack |
As a firelock in BT/Hyjal gear, should I use Flame Cap or Destruction Potion to improve my DPS in a safe way ?
I mean safe way because if I use Destruction Potion I can use my Healthstone if I need to, and if I use Flame Cap I can use Super Rejuv if I need too. I think Flame Cap do more DPS but I'm not sure, what do you use firelocks ? Last edited by Demoniack : 04/24/08 at 1:25 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2622 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gumibear |
Flame Caps average to be more damage over time than Destruction Potions. Also a Super Rejuv pot, since it gives back mana as well as health, increases your DPS (saving you life tap time) while a Healthstone does not.
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| #2623 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | scottemad123 |
For myself it really depends on my group makeup and timings within the fight. Lately I've been using mana potions over destruction potions because of the lack of running two shadow priests within our raids lately. I use flame caps on occasion on fights where I know I won't be taking too much splash damage, or fights like brutallus. As for destro pots, when I do use them I try to time them with trinket bombs and heroisms. But for the most part when learning fights, I save healthstone timers for emergencies, and use mana pots to keep from life tapping to save my healers some stress.
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| #2624 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | graywolffencer |
Let me start off by preemptively apologizing if this question has been answered in a previous post. I've spent a good deal of time looking for the answer (in this thread and in others) but nothing yet... Still, I might have missed something
With that out of the way, on to the question: (armory: The World of Warcraft Armory ) I'm a 0/21/40 lock in a t5 content guild, and am currently shunning the t5 gear and still using the 2-piece bonus of tier 4. The question is this: At what point does the 2-piece t4 bonus become less effective then the straight stats of higher-grade pieces? And which two pieces would you guys recommend using? To be honest, the bonuses from t5 look like absolute crap for a destro and the proc from the two-piece t4 seems to go off quite a bit. Any help? (Also, if someone knows just how frequently it does indeed proc, that would be useful as well) Thanks for your time | ||||||||||||
| #2625 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Mirya |
The 2-piece Tier 4 bonus ends up being about +35 dmg under ideal conditions. By ideal conditions, meaning you get to keep nuking during the entirety of the proc (which doesn't always happen). It's a good bonus but I think tier 5 level gear is better. IMO you should replace the tier 4 pieces once you find gear in those slots that collectively exceed +35 dmg.
edit: the set bonus gives you more benefit if you're affliction spec, since you cast more spells, hence it procs more often. If you're destruction spec, it's less than +35 dmg | ||||||||||||
| #2626 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
I would love to see an addition to the first post that would give some idea how much haste raiding you need on an item to justify giving up a point of damage. Before 2.4 came out Shadowseer was telling me that at my gear level (4 piece T5 and equivalent T5 level) that haste would actually benefit me more than anything else. I'm hit capped and 7/44/10 specced demo lock who uses felguard for raiding. I'm running at around 1570-1625 shadow damage when fully raid buffed (not including wrath of air totem or any other things that are not up the entire time. The 1600 numbers usually has another lock in the group with an imp stam buff which boosts me over the 1600 range. I'm low on crit (just under 20%) because everything I've seen with my spec (and shadowseer seemed to support) that damage was better for me and we already have 2 destro locks with crit % in the high 30's and mid 40's. I want to start stacking haste but I'm having issues evaluating an item and deciding if the amount of haste it has is worth the loss of spell damage that another similar item has.
So any discussion about the tradeoff numbers would be a huge help! | ||||||||||||
| #2627 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
What are you talking about.. Flame caps and destruction potions don't share a cooldown, and super rejuv pots give less mana back then super mana pots.
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| #2628 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Torq |
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I would say for you, given that your SB gets 20% less effect from your +dmg as a destro lock's does, that haste would be more heavily weighted in your favor. But that's just off the top of my head, the spreadsheet can give you a much more definitive answer. | ||||||||||||
| #2629 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Ammanas |
Basically, it comes down to if you are needing to Life Tap at all then a mana pot is always going to be better than a destruction potion. Even if you have a shadow priest, if you are having to life tap 4-5 times using a mana potion on CD to turn some of those GCDs spent tapping into Shadow Bolts is going to be more DPS. The spreadsheet backs this up, as even with a shadow priest/mana spring/JoW enabled I still get more DPS using mana potions.
I will use a destruction potion at the very beginning on Brutallus for the extra damage on my first CoD, but after that its mana pots all the way (you have to watch your threat burning one at the beginning). | ||||||||||||
| #2630 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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| #2631 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2632 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
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Still would be nice to have a sorta guideline of 1 spell haste = ?? spell damage (and same thing for crit) so if the item has 35 spell damage and 20 spell haste vs an item with 45 spell damage I can decide whether or not it is an even trade off or an upgrade or a downgrade etc. more on the spot. I do study boss loot charts and such and try to figure out what items I think are upgrades for me ahead of times but sometimes one site will miss an item and not list it under the boss or something and it will drop and I have to try to make a decision on the spot as to whether I want it or not. Maybe the worksheet will help me figure those numbers out myself. I'll give it a whirl. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We are 3/5 MH and 4/9 BT so I am starting to have more access to haste gear. Plus I'm trying to decide on badge gear and whether or not I can swing getting some haste gems once the vendor is up on our server etc. In particular I'm having a really hard time figuring out if any of the badge robes are an upgrade for me. I'm still wearing Frozen Shadoweave Robe. If I went for the Spell Crit badge robe then I'm losing 22 shadow damage and gaining 50 crit and would need to socket with 8 hit gem to get back to hit cap. I don't know if that's an upgrade or not. With the Hit robe I'd again lose about 22 shadow damage but gain 21 hit putting me over the cap and making me able to regem quite a few slots. Problem is I'd want to put haste gems there but don't yet have enough badges to buy the robe and enough gems. We aren't regularly raiding SSC or TK anymore so Vashj Robes and T5 Robes aren't currently an option. I'd really like the ones off Archimonde but could be a little while yet before we get him down as we are splitting time in both instances. Here's my armory if anyone wants to take a look and give me an opinion (with stats to back it up) on which robe would be an upgrade if either. The World of Warcraft Armory | ||||||||||||
| #2633 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
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| #2634 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
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Awesome I did not see this. I'll check it out when I get home. Thanks! | ||||||||||||
| #2635 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen | |||||||||||||
| #2636 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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What good does that do? Even if you can get a 4th pot in, right at the berserk, if you do your job right you'll be near the top of the aggro list and one of the first players to get flattened and unable to use that 4th pot anyway. | ||||||||||||
| #2637 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
Aha I have been using a different warlock spreadsheet. I thought i got it from here, hmm dunno where I got it from. Off to play with this one.
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| #2638 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Ammanas |
If I use a destro pot, I can use it the instant we pull (actually ~8-10 seconds before) and have my mana pot come up right at the end of the fight during that final burn where I'm usually bloodlusted and don't want to life tap if at all avoidable. If I wait until I spend the 3k mana I need to make sure I'm not wasting a mana pot, my CD won't be up until well into the enrage (which we never see anyway since we generally kill him with 5-10 seconds before enrage).
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| #2639 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Elane |
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Say you tap once or twice before one of these cooldown phases(Bloodlust for example) and have your trinkets ready along with a destro pot. Just thinking about it in my head seems like a better use of a pot cooldown. Also, what about just destro potting with a Skull activation? | ||||||||||||
| #2640 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Ammanas |
Destro pots don't scale as amazingly well with cooldowns as you might think, they only last 15 seconds and even with a BL and Skull plus some passive haste and drums realistically the most shadow bolts you are going to fit into that window is 9 (takes a 1.66 sec casting time). For a destro potion to be worth it, the extra +120 damage and 2% crit on those 9 shadow bolts is going to have to out-do the damage of one normal SB (assuming a mana pot only saves you one SB, which is a bit of a stretch).
My math is probably wrong here, but 120 damage when multiplied by the talented SB coefficient (105.75) is ~127. Multiply that by 43% for the damage multiplyers (13% maledicted CoS/15% Sacced Succy/10% SW/5% Misery) and I get ~182 extra damage per SB or ~1635 damage total assuming 9 SBs. Even if you assume 100% ISB for the period, its a 63% damage increase which ends up being ~2160 total net damage. That extra 2% crit chance on 9 SBs is hard to model, but I don't see it making up for the damage differential between 2160 damage and an average SB hit (for me is around 4k on this fight). Like I said, my math is probably not correct but I just don't see how any number of CDs can make those 15 seconds of 120 damage and 2% crit worth the extra SB or two you get from a mana pot. However, if you get Burn you can life tap without losing DPS while running to and from the Burn spot and a destro pot would almost certainly be better since you shouldn't have much of a mana issue with those "free" life taps. Last edited by Ammanas : 04/24/08 at 8:00 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2641 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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| #2642 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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It isn't 43% its multiplicative it is 127*1.13*1.1*1.05*1.15*isb * t6* crit modifier(if you crit 30% and have the meta that 30% would be 1.327) which is 322 with 100% isb uptime, still nearly twice as much as what you calculated.. at 9 bolts thats 2900, plus 2% crit which should be worth around +40-50dmg so like 3880dmg.. so worse than a full bolt but maybe better than 0.7-0.8 of a bolt. Especially if you can get into 10-11 bolt range. Plus on brutallus 2 mana pots, +dark runes, +good spriest, +judge/blessing, +tide/spring, + starting pool of 11-12k mana you won't need a 3rd mana pot. Last edited by Flamingcloud : 04/24/08 at 10:58 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2643 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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AFAIK, spellpower is locked at the end of cast, so a shadowbolt started with 1 second of the destro pot doesn't get the benefit. | ||||||||||||
| #2644 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Gumibear |
Read the question I responded to. The person essentially asked whether to use the healthstone cooldown for emergencies and use Destruction potions or to use Flame Caps and use the potion timer for emergencies. Flame Caps + Super Rejuv pots would maximize DPS while providing an emergency heal.
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| #2645 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Torq |
Just a strange little finding I ran across, but need some confirmation on it.
I was looking up the [Blade of Wizardry] because I found it sitting in my bank, from one of those times where I had too much cash and not enough to spend it on (picked it up for 500g, incidentally). From what I've read, it has a 15% proc chance, with a 30% internal cooldown. However, this isn't in the spreadsheet, at least not weighting the proc worth anything (should be wroth x haste) Compared to my current weapon ([Nathrezim Mindblade], lol I know... >_<), I lose 44 +dmg and 23 crit rating (~1%). However, given the 6-second length of the buff, I should be able to get 3 shadowbolts cast (or started) during the proc. I know some procs are immediately applied, and as such affect the very next spell, but I don't know if this is one of them. I intend to test it when I get home, but if anyone knows offhand, that'd help greatly. As it stands, if it takes immediate effect, with my haste gear it creates ~2.04 sec SB casts (this isn't counting my shiny new shoulders). This enables me to get 3 bolts out during it's uptime, and gives me effectively exactly the haste it tells me it does. With the best case scenario (procs every 30 seconds), this gives me an average of 6/30 * 280 haste rating, or 56 average haste rating, if I've done the math right. Given my gear setup, according to the spreadsheet, 1 haste is worth ~1.37 dmg, so this is effectively 73,98 +dmg. Incredibly enough, this makes up for the crit and damage lost switching from the Mindblade (at 44 + 23*1.23 = 72.29 +dmg) To verify this, I used it on our first RoS kill last night, and pulled off an incredible (for me, anyway) 1800 dps, with sub-optimal group composition (ele shammy but no SP in group). On previous pulls, I had a hard time breaking 1700 dps (with similar aoe in all pulls). Granted, I got some massive crits in phase 2, so part of the dps increase is due to good rolls, but it was an overall dps increase. However, I realized that there's a breakpoint to be hit. If you can push the SB cast time to just under 2 sec with the proc up (1.98 sec cast time requires 412 haste, or 132 w/o buff) you can effectively extend the effects of the proc to ~8 sec (effecting 4 bolts at ~2 sec) raising it's average haste rating to something closer to 8/30 * 280 haste, or ~74 haste rating, increasing it's worth by 18 haste rating. So, what I need to do now, to confirm this, is verify some assumptions, as well as generate a more accurate model for it's proc/uptime etc:
I'm going to go scribble out some models on paper for a bit, then come back and edit this. Feel free to beat me to it/correct any assumptions I have made. I'm not arguing that this is the "best in slot" item by any means, but it is worthwhile to see just how much this item is worth. So, I generalized out the formulas I had on hand, and came up with this: Effective +haste = (u / l) * v Where: v is the added value from the proc (280 in this case)l = (1/p * c) + icd u = ceil(k/c') * c' So, effective haste granted becomes: h' = (ceil(k/c') * c') / (c/p + icd)) * v Providing the following values:
Letting h be variable from 0-300 and solving for h' provided the following graph: ![]() Note the inflection point at 113 haste. The effective haste granted by this weapon jumps from 36.9 haste to 49.2. I also realized that these values were much lower than I had stated above, because I was forgetting to take the time to proc into account in determining the time between procs. Also, I concluded that my "dps increase" was a figment of my imagination, and I would have actually gotten more dps had I stuck with the Mindblade. Doh! [E3] I realized this could also be used to model [Quagmirran's Eye] I'll see what it looks like a bit later Last edited by Torq : 04/25/08 at 2:41 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2646 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Archona |
I feel like a complete noob posting here, but I wanted to ask members outside my local area (members of the warlock community)...
My class lead would like me to drop UA and instant HoT (cry..I loves Instant HoT) and pick up ruin....noting that not much has seemed to drop for me as an affliction lock in Hyjal or BT (so far)......Is the loss of UA and Instant HOT a good thing (outside of soloing, which I LOVE the HoT being instant for) for the raid? I really am having trouble dropping them without arguing about it...but I want to help the raid, not hobble it... Sorry if it's a stupid question, but I'm not wanting to do it without asking a large contingent of people who won't flame me for asking a stupid question, perhaps. Thanks in advance. | ||||||||||||
| #2647 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | DamnDirtyApe |
archona, your question is answered on the bottom of page 94 and the top of page 95 of this thread, as well as the first post.
In summary, imp HoT is useless for raids and the points are better spent elsewhere, and you should use the spreadsheet posted on the first page to determine if ruin is more beneficial than UA for your gear. | ||||||||||||
| #2648 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Archona |
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I guess I get to respec all the time then Thanks | ||||||||||||
| #2649 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Morwen |
Perhaps we should have separate threads for theory vs. 'help me please' like the mage threads?
To address the broader question of 'should I spec a certain way', as long as the spec is not completely silly (you can tell when it is), just try it for a raid or two and use wws to evaluate your performance, adjusting for luck as needed. This is not an agonizing decision, it doesn't cost much to respec, and it's not going to make or break your raid's success in BT/Hyjal. You are playing a warlock, not a spec, so knowing first-hand how all of the specs work is a beneficial thing. | ||||||||||||
| #2650 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Anexus |
Hi, i'm pretty new here. I just spent quite a lot of time reading through all of this and there is alot of useful information here. I'm a bit surprised about the use of CoR though. We have never really used it in raids. It has been mentioned a few times, but since nobody had any real facts we just sticked to CoS and CoE. Now if we swap CoE for CoR the mages are definitly going to start crying so I guess I need some hard data to back up such an action. I know it depends on raid setup and it's a matter of calculating the math. We usually have more than 2 locks and I personally dislike CoD due to the threat spike when it goes off. I have a few questions though. How much armor does a boss have? Or are there any chance of getting the armor down to 0? I've noticed some melee dps items have armor penetration and I bet the melee would hate it if their executioneer proccs turn out useless. I think I saw a link to some armor thing for bosses way back but I cant seem to find it again. Also, if it is a melee friendly fight, meaning they get to stay and dps more than having to run isnt there an issue with threat also? Since they cant go above 100% like casters. We dont really use rogues that often which leaves warriors, enh shammies, retri palas, ferals (which we sometimes use for offhealing in a few healing intensive situations if they dont have to tank, and running with less main healers) and hunters, which (except hunters) have very limited ways of dropping their aggro. Any thoughts or experience to share? I'll mention CoR for my rl/cl when i active my account again (temporarily closed due to school issues) and try spamming mana potions more often
I guess that question could fit into other categories or threads too. And a small totally unimportant question, but how do you grind shards as destro? I usually dont play my lock outside raids anymore and most of the time I just get them off trash. But like I learned the hard way, there is no trash to Archi. I guess just putting up a voidwalker and slowly killing the mobs is easiest? Mobs usually run out of range if fear them or I two shot them with an sb crit. Last edited by Anexus : 04/25/08 at 3:52 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2651 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nicarras |
@Anexus
You can lookup what bosses CoR is very beneficial and you should use it on there. Generally you'll have more Melee than Mages, and it will add more RaidDPS than CoE. But it is situational, depends on the boss, how much melee dps you have and how many mages you have. Most bosses you can but CoR on, if you have 3 Locks, but bosses where the tank stands a chance of dying from spikey boss dmg you shouldnt CoR. IE: Bloodboil. Shard Farming as destro for me goes like... Sac Void Shadowbolt Immolate Drain Soul Sometimes a mob gets two shot and I dont get one, but most of the time I get one. And I'm farming Basilisk outside Shatt for shards and food consumables. | ||||||||||||
| #2652 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
Farming shards as destro is quite easy, barely any extra work because you don't go out of your way to do it. Basically, you get a crit, the mob is going to die before it gets to you. Figure out it if will take 1 or two more bolts, cast drain soul while the last bolt is in the air.
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| #2653 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Anexus |
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| #2654 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | PSGarak |
2/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout will negate all of a boss's base attack power. 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout plus Curse of Recklessness with leave a boss with 20 AP, significantly less than they would have had without either, but still slightly more than just with 2/5 improved demo. Screech will close this gap. Most people don't worry about it.
You are correct that 800 ArP will probably not drop any non-RoS boss to 0 armor in a realistic gear set, but if someone is building for it specifically you might encounter it between Sunder/Expose Armor, Faerie Fire, and some really high ArP procs like executioner and [Warp-Spring Coil]. Setting aside that cap... while the exact damage increase varies depending on absolute armor of target, you can expect aronud 5-6% damage increase on each physical DPS, so if your physical DPS classes outnumber your mages 2:1 your preference is for CoR, and if you have about two or three physical DPS classes total CoR beats CoD. Note that for those purposes, a ret pally should probably count as half a physical class (lots of holy damage), an enhancement shaman maybe 3/4 (some magic damage), and a felguard perhaps 1/4. As far as destro shard farming, start drain soul while the shadowbolt is en route. While I've never been full destro, it's what I had to do when I was level 60, SM/ruin, and ridiculously overgeared (especially for WPL). It helps to start at max range and have good ping. | ||||||||||||
| #2655 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Chaley |
One thing to also consider when using CoR is that this will allow your tank to hit harder and thus generate more threat. This can help people who are throttling because they are threat capped.
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| #2656 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Sumbish |
Imp for DPS in raids
As an aff raid support spec I am always looking for ways to get a bit more DPS. I am not always required to provide bloodpact to the tanks so I am wondering whether it's possible to get some DPS from the imp given a few factors like is VE/VT available.
Has anyone had any real success with this or it's just a waste of time with the low Imp HPs? Are there any T6 fights that it works well on? Sorry if this is answered somewhere but if it is I can't find it. Last edited by Sumbish : 04/26/08 at 10:42 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2657 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Filmnio |
quick question, anyone know if you still get a hidden cooldown if you start casting a spell too early before the previous spell has finished casting? ie, do we still need to time our SB casts with our latency or can we just quickly mash our SB button?
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| #2658 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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I don't know _why_ exactly it works. What you're saying, a sort of "hidden" cooldown would explain it, I guess. | ||||||||||||
| #2659 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Troffel |
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But in general it depends on serveral factors: 1. Is on the underlying network the latency to send a next network paket low enough? Otherwise timing of the shadow bolt button is important. As a hint: Look at the nagle-algorithm of TCP-connections and try TCP_NODELAY. It should be used by Blizzard nowadays, but my experience is enable it in the registry ensures only a low latency. (I use Windows Vista.) 2. How the repeat rate of the keyboard affects the smashing? If you have a low repeat rate of the keyboard, then timing of the shadow bolt button is preferable. With my keyboard i able to set a very, very high repeat rate for the keyboard and i experience with both settings (TCP_NODELAY, very high repeat rate) a smooth chain casting of shadow bolts. By the way some keyboard allows to send keyboard events, when the key is presses, so hat smashing the keyboard is not really necessary. You need only keep the button pressed and the keyboard is firing the event every 50ms or less. This is some kind of auto firing for shadow bolts. | ||||||||||||
| #2660 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Anexus |
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If your group can manage without the extra hp I'd say go ahead and try it. However it is very fragile and will most likely be one-shotted by any dmg. Some careful pet micromanaging is probably required. How to keep him alive is very fight specific and will probably take some practice. If you get too distracted by the micromanaging it might even be a dps loss, at least until you get used to it. Aslo, I doubt VE can save him, but VT will allow him to dps a bit longer before he goes oom. And he does go oom very fast. Since phase shift cannot be cast in combat you probably want to just save him for the end of the fight. Shade of Akama is most likely the best fight for imp dps. Make sure all the casters are dead (those that do rain of fire) before you take him out of phase shift. Supremus might work in the tank and spank phase if you watch out for him, and allowing him to regen mana in the kiting phase. In MH I think I would have him dps adds if possible. Most bosses have some nasty aoe attack that will kill him, but depending on what posistioning your raid uses he might be out of range when killing adds (2nd and 4th boss). | ||||||||||||
| #2661 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Smurrf |
I've found it much better to time it. I've cast enough bolts by now to know that just after the cast bar passes the T, it's safe to cast the next one or a Drain Soul.
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| #2662 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Anexus |
I prefer to just time it too. At least as destro. I usually have around 100ms and I dont know how much about the mechanics regarding server-client messages so I might be wrong in doing so. But when you are just spamming one spell you eventually get a feeling of when to cast, and when you hear the sound of bloodlust (and see yourself grow) you kind of automatically adjust to the new speed. As affliction though I had problems, especially with nightfall proccs messing up "my feeling". You didnt mention your specc so I thought I would bring it up.
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| #2663 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Troffel |
Do decide, where time the shadow bolt key or spam it:
Is ther an addon, which measure the real time difference between the shadow bolts and compare it to the theoretical (minimum) time between shadow bolt casts? | ||||||||||||
| #2664 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
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As for as perfect timing, you won't get it per spell for the same reason you can't see it right now: we don't have valid timestamps of anything. You could, however, analyze a time slice and see how many spells you got off and how much time you lost doing nothing in between. This would actually be interesting information. | ||||||||||||
| #2665 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
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I thought they recently changed the way the client server info was sent and there was not supposed to be any more of that locking out the spell if you send again too soon and button mashing was supposed to work better now? Or am I remembering it backwards. Either way I don't do the mashing, I use quartz but I could have sworn it was in patch notes a few patches back. | ||||||||||||
| #2666 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Demoniack |
Anyone has the maths to know how many haste is needed for a firelock to cast a 7th Incinerate in the rotation?
Does it worth it to drop spell damage and crit for this 7th Incinerate? | ||||||||||||
| #2667 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Eph |
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| #2668 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Troffel |
Quartz measure a different time as latency: Difference between keypress and time of the spell start event.
By i want to measure the player skill aka spam efficiency. This is the difference between the time of the spell end event of the first spell and the start event of the second spell. In an perfect timed or perfect spammed world this time should be zero and indicates how good a player is able to chain cast. This ist the time i want to watch do decide, whether spamming or timing is better. | ||||||||||||
| #2669 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nas |
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You can check the exact time between consecutive Shadow Bolts hitting by using WWS: Browse -> Browse Log File -> Filter -> Select the Actor -> Choose Event = Hit You can then create a spreadsheet that calculates the difference, in milliseconds, between a perfect cast time (which would depend on the haste you're under at the time - you could do Dr Boom with no haste effects whatsoever, too) and each of your own Shadowbolts. | ||||||||||||
| #2670 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Troffel |
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So i think spamming (with high repeat rate of the keyboard) is much better, than timing. I would not expect that with timed keypressing a better result. So i think that there is NOT hidden CD, while spamming keys. I had 90 spell haste rating: ![]() ... 19:52'01.664 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 4852 Shadow damage 19:52'04.017 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 2389 Shadow damage (1567 resisted) 19:52'06.438 Troffel's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 10141 Shadow damage 19:52'08.808 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 4854 Shadow damage 19:52'11.180 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 4044 Shadow damage 19:52'13.554 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3629 Shadow damage 19:52'15.913 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 2200 Shadow damage (1443 resisted) 19:52'18.278 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 4352 Shadow damage 19:52'20.621 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3512 Shadow damage 19:52'22.994 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3701 Shadow damage 19:52'25.340 Troffel's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 4155 Shadow damage 19:52'27.741 Troffel's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 10646 Shadow damage ... | ||||||||||||
| #2671 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | richard |
I was under the impression that when they removed the need for /stopcasting macros. you could just mash the button?
Forgot what patch it was and I have no idea what mechanics they changed, but I went from timing it carefully to just mashing it since then. (here's wat I found, from 2.3: Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency. Edit: Interesting numbers; this is mine with 6% spellhaste (shows 2.2seconds on quartz cast bar) Looks like I can still improve a little, but the question is whether I can do that by mashing it faster or timing it carefully? ![]() 22:37'05.843 Ric's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 8345 Shadow damage 22:37'11.281 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 4061 Shadow damage 22:37'13.468 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3386 Shadow damage 22:37'15.734 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3164 Shadow damage 22:37'17.937 Ric's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 6587 Shadow damage 22:37'20.156 Ric's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 6861 Shadow damage 22:37'22.484 Ric's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 8125 Shadow damage 22:37'26.531 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3889 Shadow damage 22:37'28.531 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3953 Shadow damage 22:37'30.859 Ric's Shadow Bolt crits Brutallus for 6613 Shadow damage 22:37'33.343 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3741 Shadow damage 22:37'35.625 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3762 Shadow damage 22:37'37.968 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 2858 Shadow damage (687 resisted) 22:37'40.281 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3775 Shadow damage 22:37'42.687 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3162 Shadow damage 22:37'45.093 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3126 Shadow damage 22:37'47.515 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3126 Shadow damage 22:37'50.000 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3811 Shadow damage 22:37'52.265 Ric's Shadow Bolt hits Brutallus for 3117 Shadow damage Last edited by richard : 04/27/08 at 5:06 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2672 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Troffel |
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(For the "Let the finger down on the button"-stategie you need a keyboard, which has a auto repeating function working with WoW. For my keyboard setting the autorepeat is 50ms.) | ||||||||||||
| #2673 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | vaniah |
links
Can anyone link some url's to updated warlock spreadsheets comparing fire builds with incinerate to the default shadow destro build?
i tried the spreadsheet listed at the start of this thread but it doesn't look like it has an option for incinerate spam for some reason. otherwise some well researched debate would be nice on fire / shadow with a typical raid set up, which ought to be defined by whoever making the arguements. also, if its already somewhere in this thread... a link would nice as well. this thread is way past the "way too long" threshold... an admin or someone needs to either start a fresh one or delete the relatively useless posts | ||||||||||||
| #2674 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Nas |
A few questions I am hoping to find an answer to from those who have tanked Alythess:
1) I am assuming Nether protection is a bad idea for the Warlock tank, am I safe in assuming that? 2) I am contemplating a 40/21 sort of spec in order to have MD and Soul Link, do you feel this is necessary for survivability or would 0/21/40 without Nether Protection be optimal due to the DPS advantage in Phase 2? 3) I assume if the Warlock tank is fast enough, one wouldn't need any FR gear on save raid buffs, is that a safe assumption? Thanks in advance! | ||||||||||||
| #2675 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Madlax |
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DPS problems as tanking warlock is none of your concern. Survival is. Fire res gear doesn´t work. 3 Tanks - 1 Lock Sacrolash last Wow Web Stats 2 Tanks - 1 Lock Alythess last Wow Web Stats Hope that helps. | ||||||||||||
| #2676 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Amandine |
Tempest of Chaos or Zhar'Doom ??
Which is better? ToC or Zhardoom? According to Leulier's spreadsheet Zhardoom is giving slidely more DPS, anyone could confirm this?
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| #2677 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ Kordansk |
In reference to the noticeable internal cooldown, it was basically a GCD everytime you spammed the button when a cast wasn't done at a viable time, and the reasoning was the client was checking with the server if the shadowbolt had been cast. It has been since changed so it is all done client side. I believe it was changed a while ago, and what you would see on the client end is a GCD start to tick around the button mid cast appearing to restart, well now it does it but it just cancels immediately and allows you to cast as soon as you are completed with the previous cast.
Also, Zhardoom is better as long as you maintain your hit cap switching from ToC and Rage offhand, to the staff, due to the haste rating on it, and the way haste ends up scaling better when you reach certain points in crit and spell damage. edit: Torq did you get a chance to model Quag's Eye? I was wondering what the effective haste on it is, compared to the use of Skull of Guldan every 2 min. Last edited by Kordansk : 04/28/08 at 6:05 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2678 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Deathwing |
Precise timing is still better than button mashing. As kordansk said, GCD is now done client side, BUT, if you send that request to the server too early, it will cancel your GCD, but the time it took for your message to go to the server and back may have been more time than it would taken to press the button at the right time.
Basically, button mashing approaches precise timing as your latency lowers. | ||||||||||||
| #2679 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arelenda |
I don't get this. You need a LOT more than 6% haste to get down to 2.2s casting time. You need over 140 haste rating to even come under 2.3s. Did I misunderstand something, or are you just wrong on this?
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| #2680 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Torq |
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Given the longer internal cooldown and lower proc chance, I'm going to go with it being worth far less than one might think. The following graph applies only to lolsbspam locks, as I use a 2.5 sec cast spam as the basis for calculating the cutoffs: ![]() Note that this is calculated without any latency concerns. Each 10 ms of latency will shift that point right by about 7-8 passive haste. If you want to calculate your exact value of how much the effective haste it's worth for you, just go plug in your numbers to the formula I posted earlier. Again, the formula keeps only destro locks in mind; if you're affliction, you may want to look into the suggestions Leulier posted in the lock spreadsheet thread. For reference, with my 87 haste, it'd be worth ~80 (79.95 to be exact) +dmg for me. Oddly enough, this is slightly more than my Darkmoon Card: Crusade. Hmm. Most likely, that's due to me having hit the first breakpoint. [E] By comparison, the Skull is worth +128 damage, if it is contributing to your hitcap. If not, it's still worth ~88 +dmg or so. In case anyone's wondering, there is a second breakpoint, but it's in the 600-700 passive haste range, for the Blade, anyway. I'd expect the Eye to be similar in value. I don't think it's possible to hit this second breakpoint (even with BL+IV), so I'm not really concerned about it. Last edited by Torq : 04/28/08 at 10:38 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2681 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Jipakazoid |
Regarding previous question of using an imp as additional dps, there are several fights where it is quite useful, namely Brutallus. Our affliction warlock is setting his imp free and he is doing his thing just like the hunter pets. It may take you a few tries to learn where to set him, but in the end you are looking at additional 100-150 dps.
Also make sure he gets all the raid buffs, it will help him sustain his fire bolts much better. | ||||||||||||
| #2682 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Presarc |
The imp's positioning doesn't matter much for Brutallus anyways as far as I've seen as the affliction warlock in the tank group. None of the abilities can affect him if my memory serves.
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| #2683 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Faldrath |
Does anyone know whether DoTs applied during Kalecgos persist between realms? Yesterday I tried casting CoD on the demon just before I left the shadow realm, and when I checked WWS this morning the results were inconclusive. I'm pretty sure I didn't see anything in the combatlog during the fight, and WWS doesn't register any CoD damage for me - although it does register Sathovarr being afflicted by the CoD debuff (but, again, in his shadow damage taken summary there isn't the expected 13k or so hit, so maybe it just registers the debuff being applied). Of course, CoS and CoE do persist, so either this is just a combatlog bug, or damage dots are cleared when you leave a realm.
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| #2684 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Morwen |
Your combat log won't register anything happening in the other realm since it is too far away, so wws won't be anywhere near accurate unless you can merge multiple logs. I don't see debuffs vanishing when I'm in the demon realm and people are ported up, so presumably the damage still happens.
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| #2685 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | LockApologist |
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| #2686 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Faldrath |
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| #2687 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | LockApologist |
I've found that Zhardoom is about 10-15 dps loss from ToC + Rage OH. If you look at just ZD vs ToC, ZD looks to be higher, but the sheet does not take into account your OH when comparing MH to 2hd.
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| #2688 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
Best way to compare it is to play with the gear_buffs area. Put ToC & choose your offhand and then look at the dps scrreen and see what the final number is then go back and put Zhardoom and choose "none" for offhand and go look again. For me its a neglible difference. Zhardoom comes in 1.04 dps more but that's using ToC & Fetish of the primal gods. Using one of other offhands (Chronicle of Dark Secrets is about 3dps less than ZD, Blind Seer's Icon is aobut 7-8 dps less) it is even less because I am already hit capped. So its an upgrade over ToC & any of the good off hands avaiable for me right now but its only marginally better. It's really gonna depend on your other gear and whether or not the hit rating on the sword helps you out.
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| #2689 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nicarras |
Does anyone else find it funny that we still get questions like 'is itemX better than itemY' when it varies lock to lock, spec to spec....and we refer people to the spreadsheet every single time?
Spreadsheet people, its not perfect, but its pretty darn close. | ||||||||||||
| #2690 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
Is there any mathematical benefit to stacking [The Skull of Gul'dan] alone with Power Infusion/Heroism?
At first, I didn't think there was, since both of them are haste benefits. But since the Skull is a linear increase in spell haste, while the other 2 are multipliers, I am now thinking that I was mistaken. | ||||||||||||
| #2691 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Anexus |
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MH + OH (rage winterchill): 46sta 34int 34spellhit 47spellcrit 301spelldmg Staff: 70sta 47int 36spellcrit 55spellhaste 259spelldmg Personally, I would take MH + OH because: - Sunwell gear lack hit - you always want more spelldmg - there are more yellow than red sockets allowing for gemming of crit/haste/hit and still get socket bonuses - you will most likely kill Rage and Archi alot more than Illidan (when you down Illidan Sunwell seems to be the next priority) - staffs have high stamina and intellect which take up alot of the itemlvl for the weapons but contribute very little to the dps as suppose to pure dmg/hit/crit/haste Regardless, it is a close call and depends highly on the gear you already have. Last edited by Anexus : 04/28/08 at 3:53 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2692 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
While there is clearly a benefit to stacking hexlord with heroism.. My assumption is that since haste does not scale perfectly linearly is that it is actually worse to use guldan during heroism.
Quick math.. (assuming its 2.5/[1.haste*30%]) 0 passive haste 40sec of heroism 20.80 bolts @ 1,923 20 sec of guldan 8.89 bolts @ 2.25 29.69 bolts 20sec of both 11.54 bolts @ 1.733 20sec of hero 10.4 bolts @ 1.923 20 sec of nothing 8 bolts @ 2.5 29.94 bolts 200 passive haste 40 sec of heroism 23.43 bolts @ 1.707 20 sec of guldan 9.9bolts @2.019 33.33bolts 20 sec of both 12.87 bolts @ 1.554 20 sec of heroism 11.716 bolts @ 1.707 20 sec of nothing 9.01 bolts @ 2.219 33.59bolts Edit fixed a mistake in my division. Last edited by Flamingcloud : 04/28/08 at 6:37 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2693 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ manly |
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| #2694 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Morwen |
Problem found.
In fact the benefit of Gul'dan doesn't scale with your haste at all. With the following variables: C = base cast time (2.5s for Shadow Bolt) H = haste (rating/1577) G = fel infusion (175/1577) Then you get (1/C)*[20*(1.3)(1 + H {+G if you pop it during hero}) + 20*(1.3)(1 + H) + 20*(1 + H {+G if you pop it outside})] for total casts in the 60 second window. Popping Gul'dan somewhere in the initial 20 seconds makes it 1.3 times better and the benefit has no dependence on H. Edit: of course in a real situation you don't get fractional casts since haste is locked in at the start of the cast, so results may differ from up-rounding. | ||||||||||||
| #2695 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | richard |
Sorry, I made an error. 2.2 seconds is what I get with Drums of Battle up, without it quartz shows 2.3. Also, the character sheet rounds up the percentage, without drums I have 103 haste.
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| #2696 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Cronjob |
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I took ZD and it increased my dps by a bit although I didnt have ToC before. | ||||||||||||
| #2697 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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| #2698 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Nicarras |
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Outside of the set items there isnt much hit there. So if you have the staff and dont gem for hit, maybe you missed a skull, theres a chance you are running into sunwell not at hit cap. Or possible that you wouldnt be at the hit cap if you swapped an item. I'm close enough hit cap and are 10% haste shadow and 12% fire, so it is doable, but you just have to micromanage your Lock. IMO if you get a Moonkin and/or Ele sham in your group consistently you should not gem for crit and just gem for haste. I keep going over the numbers and if you get those two it's pretty nice. You dont have to gem for hit since you will be over hit cap as long as the Shaman is alive and you can stack more haste than crit as you are getting a ton from group buffs. So always try to keep track of what your raid buffs are also, as they should impact how you max/min your toon. | ||||||||||||
| #2699 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Morwen |
The part I quoted is the arithmetic error.
Haste increases the number of casts in a fixed timeframe in a linear manner no matter how much haste you have already. This makes it sublinear with respect to your actual dps but it's still linear to the number of casts: In a fixed timeframe T, with fixed base cast time C and variable haste H, each cast is C/(1+H) so the total number of casts is (1+H)(T/C), and that's linear in H. | ||||||||||||
| #2700 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Anexus |
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I personally never gem for hit (I try to get it off the item stats themselves), but I know some people do so I just mentioned that for the sake of completion. I dont know what you are trying to say with that haste you got. That you have alot of haste doesnt change the fact that there is less hit on drops in Sunwell. As for gems I will go for dmg in red, dmg+haste in orange unless my crit drops below 25% (tooltip) in which case I will go dmg+crit. | ||||||||||||
| #2701 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Krazen |
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Part of the reason haste is sublinear over 6 minutes is the increased mana output, and thus increased lifetap frequency over an extended duration. However, during trinkets/heroism, you should be lifetapping 0 times regardless of what your haste level is. | ||||||||||||
| #2702 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
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Total haste = 200+175 with heroism thats 2.5/[(1+375/1577*1.30)] or 2.5/1.609 ie 1.554 for 20 seconds i don't see the issue here. 1 Haste WILL NOT always reduce your cast time(and this is the only thing that determines number of shadowbolts) by the same. 10% haste 2.5/1.1= 2.273 reduction of 0.227 20% haste 2/5/1.2 = 2.083 reduction of 0.189 Unless there was a problem somewhere else that I didnt see or I am totally missing something, the numbers prove using gul'dan during heroism(and coincidently drums aswell) is worse | ||||||||||||
| #2703 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Torq |
Mmk, let's try to model this a lil:
W/o skull or BL, for 70 sec with 0 haste you get: 70/2.5 = 28 shadowbolts Back-to-back BL + Skull you get: 45 sec of SBs at 2.5/1.3 (1.923) cast time (with r sec overflow) and 20 sec at 2.5/1.11 (2.250) cast time (t overflow) and x at 2.5 = r = ceil(45/1.923) - 45/1.923 = 0.599 t = ceil(20/2.250) - 20/2.250 = 0.111 ceil(45/1.923) + ceil(20/2.250) + (70-45-20-r-t)/2.5 = 24 + 9 + 1.716 = 34.716 shadowbolts in 70 sec. Stacking Skull in the first 20 sec of BL you get: 20 sec of SBs at 2.5/(1.3+.11) (1.773) cast time (with r overflow), (25-r) sec at 2.5/1.3 (1.923) cast time (t overflow) and x at 2.5= r = ceil(20/1.773) - 20/1.773 = 0.720 t = ceil((25-r)/1.923) - (25-r)/1.923 = 0.373 ceil(20/1.773) + ceil((25-r)/1.923) + (70-45-t)/2.5 = 12 + 13 + 9.850 = 34.8508 bolts in 70 sec. Correct my math if I'm wrong, but while it's a benefit to stack the two, it doesn't seem like much of one. These assume that you wouldn't pop your trinket until after casting the last bolt affected by the previous haste, of course. the 70 window (instead of 65) was to soak up the overflow, as you techincally get the haste benefit from every spell cast while the haste bonus is up. Of course, with the right amounts of haste, stacking the two would give an even greater benefit, if you can squeeze that last .72 sec of the last bolt that gets the benefit of both of them down enough to fit another bolt in. But again, it's really close. [E] Just realized, my calculation for stacking the two under BL might be off. Is it c/(1+h+.3) for BL, or c/((1+h)*1.3)? [E2] My fractional times might be off. I'll have to check my units later. Don't have time now, sadly. | ||||||||||||
| #2704 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
I am acting under the assumption it is *1.3 not +0.3 Torq.. I tried to get a shaman to heroism me 4 times but apparently there is some sort of bug where heroism wasnt hitting me.. If it is +0.3 then it is even more clear not to stack them tho.
Torq, you should do two of those graphics you do Torq with total bolts casted vs passive haste 0-400 one for trinket during hero, one for trinket after hero. Curious where the inflection points are. Edit: Fixed my original numbers for a mistake(wrote bolt count down off by 1second), would seem as tho stacking is still better, at 200.. and the gap changes so insignificantly that it is probably always better to stack them. Last edited by Flamingcloud : 04/28/08 at 6:39 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2705 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Latas |
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Now keeping that in mind, the skull actually adds raw haste to your standing haste for 20s. The question is, depending on how it is all calculated together, is the Heroism calculated after or before the skull? Seems like this would depend if the skull is just being added to your gear haste rating for calculations or if its being taken into account after things like Heroism. Please tell me if i missed something here because every resource i have seen, including the spreadsheet, says this is how haste rating works. Last edited by Latas : 04/28/08 at 7:41 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2706 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | crimsonsentinel |
100% haste means your spells cast in half the time it normally takes to cast if you ignore the global cooldown. Haste rating acts the same way as heroism.
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| #2707 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | PSGarak |
All haste effects work the same, +100% haste is a -50% casting speed change. All haste gained through haste rating gets lumped together additively, all other haste effects get multiplied separately. So a 30% bloodlust with the skull active will make you cast 30% caster than a non-lusted skull activation. Hasting the haste nets you a minor cross-multiplicative term that makes them better to stack than to use independently.
Math: Let's say you have two equal amounts of time, two haste activations, and for the sake of simplicity you can either haste one interval than the other, or double-haste on and have the other be unhasted. Haste, as should be evident, multiplies your damage done in that interval by a percent. Let's look at the sum of damage multipliers. Stacking them is better than not stacking them, by an amount equal to the cross-term. Which is 30% of however much haste you get from the skull. Note that this is only true because of bloodlust being done by percent instead of haste rating. If you had two haste rating activations (or a proc and a clicky or whatever) there is no benefit to stacking them. Because the benefit of haste rating is linear it doesn't matter if you use them together or not. Hueristics: 100% haste doubles your cast speed, giving you double damage. 200% haste triples it, tripling your damage. The second 100% was the same increase as the first 100% (compared to your base damage). | ||||||||||||
| #2708 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Latas |
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| #2709 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ manly |
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final_cast_time = talented_cast_time / (1 + total_haste_rating_in_percent) / 1.3 (bloodlust) / 1.1 (berserking) / 1.2 (icy veins) Lets say I use a talented shadowbolt and 10% passive haste x = 2.5 / (1 + 0.10) / 1.3 / 1.1 / 1.2 In other words, spell haste rating is additive, and haste effects like bloodlust, icy veins, power infusion, berserking, focus proc are multiplicative. | ||||||||||||
| #2710 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | ◊ manly |
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If, for example, you had a 200 haste / 20s trinket, and one that gives 400 haste / 20s, then stacking them together would allow you for: 200 haste = 12.68% 400 haste = 25.36% 600 haste = 38.05% (200+400 - stacked) 2.5 / 1 = 2.5 -> 8 shadowbolts / 20.00s 2.5 / 1.1268 = 2.22s -> 10 shadowbolts cast within proc / 22.20s (gain: +2 sb) 2.5 / 1.2536 = 1.99s -> 11 shadowbolts cast within proc / 21.89s (gain: +3 sb) 2.5 / 1.3805 = 1.81s -> 12 shadowbolts cast within proc / 21.72s (gain: +4 sb) (expected: +5 sb) conclusion: stacking 200 haste with 400 haste trinkets together is detrimental. PS: using different values I can also show that stacking them is to your advantage; the point is that the gain is not linear, and stacking/unstacking can be beneficial depending on what your haste is at. | ||||||||||||
| #2711 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Devourment |
Quick question as I'm stepping out of work:
I am using haste due to my group synergy (Spriest + ele sham 100% of the time, so definitely always for brut.) I am currently at 11% haste not counting skull, with 2.25 second SB. The reason for using haste to me, instead of spinels/straight +dmg, is that my haste multiplies the effects of the totem of wrath and wrath of air by 11% tooltip, 10% in real time, thus slightly edging out +dmg in what I have sacrificed for haste. The World of Warcraft Armory I have deviated from a few leulier spreadsheet non-haste upgrades due to their rather weak (5-15) dps improvement numbers, based on my personal calculations. Am I wrong? | ||||||||||||
| #2712 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Demoniack |
Since we're talking about haste...
Haste is useless for a Fire Lock untill he can fit a 7th Incinerate in his rotation, right? Immolate---------[start] Incinerate(1)-----[2.25] Incinerate(2)-----[4.5] Incinerate(3)-----[6.75] Incinerate(4)-----[9.0] Incinerate(5)-----[11.25] Incinerate(6)-----[13.5] 225 Haste is needed for a 7th Incinerate, math: ![]()
Want to hear pro Fire Locks on this. Edit: Actually, I think the math are wrong: incinerate's extra damage from immolate is calculated on time of cast, not when incinerate reaches the target (correct me if im wrong), so the target will be 7 Incinerates in 15 seconds. Doing the maths again with 7 Incinerate in 14.9 seconds = 125 haste is needed. Last edited by Demoniack : 04/28/08 at 9:36 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2713 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Trickykid |
"Fitting" incinerates into an immolate is not nearly as important as you'd think. The extra damage to incinerate from immolate is relatively small. You can play around with the sheet to go off of "worse case" immolate uptimes and it will drop your DPS by a handful of points. Add another lock immolating and this loss is nothing.
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| #2714 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Demoniack |
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As for haste: (You'll prolly tell me to test in on the spreadsheet) I understand and believe haste is very food for Shadow Bolt spam, but what is your opinion on Incinerate ? | ||||||||||||
| #2715 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | • frmorrison |
You would want both Locks casting Immolate.
Haste is great for both dps spells. The only difference between the two is SB favors crit more than using Incinerate, both spells love more spell haste. | ||||||||||||
| #2716 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Flamingcloud |
Haste also benefits fire locks less than shadow locks, but the difference isn't very large. mainly due to incin being a 2.5 second spell with 10% haste not a 2.25 second spell. (tho there is also the immolate will go below 1.0 second cast during heroism slight penalty)
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| #2717 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Latas |
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| #2718 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | LockApologist |
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| #2719 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Mortimmer |
For the crafted section, there are also [Bracers of Nimble Thought].
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| #2720 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Elija |
Timbal's Focusing Crystal
Hello, is there any qualified calculation about the new mgt heroic trinkets DPS: Timbal's Focusing Crystal ?
Is it better than Mags Eye or even Crescent? (depending if you cast 1, 2 or even more dots) | ||||||||||||
| #2721 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Madlax |
Regarding Haste cycles:
[Warlock] PVE Raiding Compendium Done with "new" LT back then, mana wise you´ll lack 1 tap every 4 cycles nowadays. | ||||||||||||
| #2722 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 Edited onPatch 2.4.1 | Lacky |
My question is the real world application of haste when you only have a limited amount of it. Do you really need a good % of haste before you see returns in the 'real world' applications? I know what the spreadsheet says but when you look at movement and slight lag during fights is it worth sacrificing crit for a little bit of spell haste. These are the two gear scenarios i am playing with.
spell hit caped in both Gear Set A: Dmg-1267 Crit-20.91 Haste-2%(2.43 sec SB) Gear Set B: Dmg-1277 Crit-22.18 Haste-0 *edit* btw these stats are all unbuffed Last edited by Lacky : 04/29/08 at 11:30 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2723 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Arnath |
There's some math on Timbal's somewhere in either this thread or the DPS spreadsheet thread (it's actually also in the Wowhead comments for the item). Basically, if you're in a raid as Affliction, it's better than the Icon because the damage of the bolt scales with all the +% shadow damage buffs/debuffs you have going. However, at the same time, it's only better because of these % bonuses so it's worse than the Icon in normal situations.
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| #2724 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | Rozzenwyn |
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| #2725 | Source | Posted onPatch 2.4.1 | tetracycloide |
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The best thing you can hope to maximize from a theory crafting standpoint is the expect value of your DPS. The spreadsheet calculates the average value of your DPS given a set of gear and a fight of infinite length (even if you set the OOM time it is still an average of what the DPS would be given an infinite number of 10 min fights or whatever time it was set to). Obviously the spreadsheet is going to miss exceptional situations where, in a specific case, X% amount of haste would have resulted in 1 more bolt thrown in a 4' fight and therefor would be better than X% crit or vice versa. This is largely irrelevent, however, because at the end of the day the specific mechanics of every fight are different and the best thing you can hope to maximize through theorycrafting is still the expected value of your DPS. | ||||||||||||
| #2726 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Morwen |
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Here are some actual values from shadow priest testing (who should generally have a higher proc rate) Shadow Priest 101: How to Melt Faces Effectively In general it is pretty close to the Icon, and due to luck can be better or worse (it is not quite as good for warlocks as for priests). Given that, I still prefer the Icon for a couple reasons: in a short fight you will get more than the average for a clickable trinket, its timing is controllable, and you know exactly what you're getting out of it every time you click. Edit: added math. ![]() Part I - Computing the average damage Tooltip average is 380. Multipliers: CoS - 1.13 Weaving - 1.1 Misery - 1.05 Crit - 1.1 at 20% crit ISB - 1.12 at 60% uptime Hit rate - 0.99 Partial Resist - 0.94 at 6% partial resist rate Average damage = 569. Part II - Computing the dps based on the proc rate distribution Define k := number of DoT ticks per second X := the period of time elapsed until a proc, when the cooldown is ready. Let f be the probability density function of X, and F be its cumulative distribution. In other words, F(x) is the probability that a proc happens in the first x seconds. Then F(x) = 1 - 0.9^(kx) = 1 - e^(ln(0.9^k)*x) So X is an exponential distribution with lambda L = -k*ln(0.9), and f(x) = L*e^(-Lx). Expected dps of proc = Average damage per proc * E[1/(15+X)] E[1/(15+X)] = Integral of (1/(15+x) * L*e^(-Lx) dx) from 0 to positive infinity Sample values k = 1/3 --> E[1/(15+X)] = 0.03134, dps 17.8 k = 2/3 --> E[1/(15+X)] = 0.04042, dps 23.0 k = 3/3 --> E[1/(15+X)] = 0.04545, dps 25.9 In terms of comparing this to Icon's activate effect, since the dps value of +dmg is gear-dependent you should just plug your gear/spec in the spreadsheet and check the dmg-to-dps conversion rate in a zero-lifetap situation. For me it's something like 21 dps on average and scales with haste effects whereas Timbal's doesn't. Last edited by Morwen : Yesterday at 6:19 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2727 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Lock |
Dark runes
I was woundering why the dps spreadsheet goes up when using dark runes, do they not have a global cause wouldnt lifetapping be more efficent?
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| #2728 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Flamingcloud |
They do not trigger the global. As far as I know, no consumable instant item does.
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| #2729 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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Haste typically beats any other stat, except hit, on a one-for-one basis, when you have reasonable amounts of haste (<250). | ||||||||||||
| #2730 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Torq |
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Surprisingly, it's actually linear. [E2] Turns out I wasn't doing the BL calc right. Go me for always using the base cast time (DOH!) Uploading a new ver. Okay, fixed version. Still linear, but now stacked and separate are humping each other. ![]() Last edited by Torq : Yesterday at 8:11 PM. | ||||||||||||
| #2731 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Tobolin |
i see more and more locks going fire. what am i missing?! to me, i see shadow being more benefitial(while i agree that both shadow/fire are very good dps options) because of spriest synergy, boosting their dps and their mana return to their group. my question is more so this: my shadow dps is already top in my guild, should i consider respeccing/reenchanting/regearing to accommodate fire?
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| #2732 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Torq |
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It's more a case of locks respec'ing because 1) there are plenty of shadow locks to go around (every lock past the first contributes less and less to ISB uptime) or 2) they just want big numbers. /shrug | ||||||||||||
| #2733 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Tobolin |
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and about big numbers... how much higher am i going to see? im already destro with 1440 shadow dmg(soulfrost/trash cloak) | ||||||||||||
| #2734 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Carnate |
With three locks you should be using CoE instead of CoD anyways. As long as the raid has two or more mages CoE is better dps.
Fire can be better personal DPS but you bring nothing to the table and can hurt your raid by not adding to the ISB. Shadow also provides the side buffs of Nether Prot and Soul Leach. Side note last I heard Fire was the better DPS spec for mages anyways. Ours all go fire cept on Illidan (parasites and flames damage). | ||||||||||||
| #2735 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 Edited on *estimate*<=2.0.0 | Arelenda |
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Additional locks do improve ISB uptime by less when you have more shadow locks, this is true. But you're also increasing dps uptime for more people. ISB uptime comparisons are only valid if you have an equal number of shadow users, like when you're calculating what crit rate increases do for you. For everything else you should take a look at total damage boosted by ISB. And you really do want to use CoE if you have a somewhat competent mage. You do about 10-12k damage per minute with CoD, so if there's 100k damage per minute (1666 dps) in fire/frost CoE is better. Not to mention CoD can be totally or partially resisted and needs to be recast every minute, and is more threat to the warlock. Last edited by Arelenda : Today at 6:10 AM. | ||||||||||||
| #2736 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Madlax |
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With current gear and boss fights, CoE should always be put up instead of CoD as 3rd curse once you have a properly dpsing mage. In a fight like Brutallus, every mage should reach 600k damage done on his own. | ||||||||||||
| #2737 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Alazin |
Does anyone have a link to the standard fire demo/sac build? I know everyone pushes shadow sac but I've always been the fire lock who provides CoE for our runs.
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| #2738 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | bambatsa |
Forgive me if i am off the subject here.
I am a destro lock 0/20/41_hybrid with almost full t5 set and i am wondering if there is an update on my Sextant of Unstable Currents trinket. i am using it with the Icon of the Silver Crescent. I have spell hit caped and my crit is arround 26,5 fully buffed. Have seen your suggestions on trinkets and didn't see this one amongst them...so thought i should i ask. Should i aim at a better one? thanx | ||||||||||||
| #2739 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Anexus |
Has anybody done any math on [Fel Mana Potion] vs [Super Mana Potion]. With and without the alchemist stone. I am assuming it works for both potions. And I am prettry sure the debuff from the fel potion stacks so some kind of decreasing spelldmg over time model is needed. Not sure how to calculate the effects.
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| #2740 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Flamingcloud |
Well If I take my numbers in the spreadsheet and give myself an extra 50 mp5 and remove 25 spell damage (ignoring any kind of stacking debuff) super mana pots come out way way ahead. Only time I could see fel mana pots being better is at the very end if a fight, and only once(so the effective -damage is more like -6).
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| #2741 | Source | Posted on<=2.0.0 | Torq |
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Though, it does bring up a nice modelling problem, one that I've seen been tossed around and touted as "very difficult" given the scale and complexity. I'll probably end up taking a swing at it and reaching the same conclusion myself, but it might be a fun exercise |